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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNfri^ STATES OF AMERICA. 



rtir 8 1886 



Right Life; 



OR, 



Candid Talks on Vital Themes. 



JOSEPH A. SEISS, D.D., LL.D., 



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Pastor of the Church of the Holy Communion, Philadelphia, 



Ist's Gotteswerk, so wird's bestehen : 
Ist's Menschenwerk wird's untergehen. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
1886. 



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Copyright, 1886, 
BY JOSEPH A. SEISS. 



PREFACE 



"Popular discourses are not intended to impart 
new investigations." Their purpose is rather to 
summarize the results of more systematic studies, 
and to reproduce them in easy form for popular 
edification. 

In this conception the Lectures here following 
were prepared and delivered. They were meant to 
be free Talks on some very vital themes, addressed 
to a promiscuous congregation specially invited to 
hear them. 

The object was, if possible, to induce thinking 
young people, non-church-goers, and persons in 
doubt or indifference respecting religion to under- 
take a candid survey of the leading questions of 
faith, and to give some serious attention to the 
foundation-principles of Right Life, and what is to 
be said upon them, over against the Epicurean tend- 
encies of the times, which are doing so much mis- 
chief in many circles. 

It cannot be denied that, from one cause or an- 



PREFACE. 



other, many who should be earnest workers in the 
ranks of behevers are being sadly misled, and often 
without having had fair opportunity to understand 
what is involved in the temper which they have too 
much indulged, to their own detriment and to the 
hindrance of what society rightfully expects of them. 
Beholding so many young men and otherwise intelli- 
gent and well-meaning people thus drifting no one 
knows whither from proper anchorage on God's 
everlasting truth, the author of these Lectures was 
moved to make a special attempt to recall such of 
them as might be within his reach to an earnest 
and candid consideration of those great fundamen- 
tal verities which they are disposed to ignore or 
regard with suspicion, but without which life and 
our entire civilization must become a wreck. 

The author has no fears for the existence of Chris- 
tianity. It has lived too long, imbedded itself too 
deeply in the world's heart, and is too solidly linked 
to imperishable truth, ever to be jostled out of its 
place by anything that possibly can happen. No 
matter what else on earth may change or perish, 
"the Word of the Lord endureth for ever." But 
for this very reason the pity is all the more affecting 
that gifted and cultured souls should be ruined, and 
that society should suffer the loss of their conserva- 
tive activities, because of unreasonable prejudices, 



PREFACE. 5 



groundless conceits, or the wrong impressions en- 
gendered by an agnostic scientism, a one-sided edu- 
cation, and a presumptuous materialistic philosophy. 
Hence these Talks, which numerous hearers have 
expressed desire to possess for more deliberate 
study and to have placed within the reach of the 
community at large. 

The Lectures are given almost entirely as they 
were delivered. Liberty has been taken to add a 
number of notes and a few supplementary incidents, 
which it is hoped the reader will not omit. The 
whole is now presented to the public in the same 
spirit in which the Lectures were originally prepared. 
And the earnest prayer of the author is that God 
may bless the publication to the increase of confi- 
dence in those immortal truths which served to 
regenerate diseased society in ages past, and on 
which the only hope of our ailing humanity rests. 
Philadelphia, March i8, 1886. 



BOOKS ON THE SAME GENERAL SUBJECT WHICH 
HAVE BEEN CONSULTED AND USED IN THE 
PREPARATION OF THESE LECTURES. 



Pascal's Pensees, or Thoughts on Religion. 

Luthardt's Fundajuental Truths of Christianity. 

Liddon's Bampton Lectures. 

Christlieb's Modern Doubt and Christian Belief. 

Fairbairn's The City of God, etc. 

Bushnell's Nature and the Supernatural, 

Leathes's Witness of St. Paul to Christ. 

Young's The Christ of History. 

Uhlhorn's Modern Representations of the Life of Jesus. 

Farrar's Witness of History to Christ. 

Schaff 's Christ and Christianity. 

The Great Problem, by a Student of Science. 

Sartorius's Person and Work of Christ. 

Trench's Hulsean Lectures. 

De Pressense's Study of Origins. 

Moore's The Age and the Gospel. 

Wiseman's Science and Revealed Religion. 

Winchell's Reconciliation of Science and Religion. 

Lotze's Microcosmus. 

Popular Objections to Revealed Truth, by Sundry Authors. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



LECTURE FIRST. 

PAGE 

The tendencies of our times 17 

The dangers involved 19 

Educational one-sidedness 21 

Results respecting faith and religion 23 

Sources of infidelity 24 

Different classes of unbelievers 25 

The present proposal 27 

The fact of our existence 28 

What our life is 30 

Man not an evolution from the brute 32 

The solemnity of our existence 36 

The supreme importance of the present 37 

The necessity for getting all the light we can 41 

LECTURE SECOND. 

A vital point in Right Life 43 

Need for handling the startling question 45 

Universality of belief in a superior Power 46 

Atheism a violation of Nature 48 

Divine existence a thing of consciousness 51 

Compared with other intuitions and beliefs 52 

Something must have existed from eternity 55 

Whence is life 57 

9 



lO CONTENTS. 



PAGB 

No God, no life 59 

The universe argues creative Mind 6i 

Wonders of the heavens and the earth 63 

The human frame and mind . . . , » 66 

The assertion that there is no God 69 

The incomprehensibility of God 72 

How to know there is a God 74 

LECTURE THIRD. 

Common acknowledgment of a supreme Power 77 

Man requires a satisfactoiy object of worship 78 

God . 79 

A personal and ethical Being 81 

Coming to God 83 

Faith in God a natural necessity 84 

Illustrations from our situation in the world 85 

From the need of some law of wisdom more than impulse ... 87 

From the immensities around us 89 

From the nature of spiritual life and death 92 

From our relation to futurity 94 

Insufficiency of mere speculative belief 96 

Practical atheism 97 

Rebuked by the creation around us 98 

LECTURE FOURTH. 

Religion defined loi 

Prejudices against the subject 103 

Its prominence in the history and activities of man 104 

Is grounded in man's nature 107 

How some scientists propose to account for it loS 

Man is framed to religion no 

Faith as an clement of religion 112 

All knowing is conditioned by faith 113 



CONTENTS. 1 1 



PAGE 

Faith the basis of all achievement ii6 

Ordinary and religious faith 117 

Prayer as an element of religion 121 

Unreasonable objections to prayer 122 

Work and prayer 123 

Examples of the naturalness of prayer 125 

Practical need of religion 126 

LECTURE FIFTH. 

H^ason anti Mebelation. 

Natural reason 129 

Insufficient without help 130 

Reasonableness of revelation 131 

Office of revelation 134 

The efforts of human reason 137 

Can tell nothing certain concerning the Deity 139 

At sea about righteousness and duty 144 

Totally at a loss in the presence of sin 149 

Revelation a necessity 153 

The miraculous no argument against it 154 

Miracles not contrary to Nature 154 

The question of miracles a question of fact 156 

Miracles not so strange as imagined 158 

Revelation to be reasonably expected 160 

The reality of revelation never refuted i6i 

Christianity challenges the closest investigation 1 61 

LECTURE SIXTH. 

Mebelation liemcinstrateTJ* 

Revelation a corollary of the divine existence 163 

Its reality to be determined as a matter of fact 164 

The written Record of creation 165 

Antiquity of this Record 166 

The claims of science 168 

Agreement between the Record and the showings of science . .169 



12 CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

On the primal condition of the earth 171 

On the origin of light 173 

On the formation of the earth 175 

On the order of organic life 177 

On the sea-monsters — tanninim 180 

How came this ancient Record? 181 

Its existence demonstrates a divine revelation 183 

Intended to make known the almighty Creator 185 

Is worthy of God 186 

Imposes a momentous responsibility 187 

LECTURE SEVENTH. 

Hebelattcn fuctfier ©emonstratetr. 

The story of Jesus Christ 190 

Its existence and power must be accounted for 191 

Not an invention of man 192 

The mere ideal could only be from God 197 

Must have had a living original 198 

The supernatural details of the story 200 

Christ's childhood 201 

His laborious goodness 203 

His miraculous originality 205 

His marvellous breadth 209 

His harmonious self-consistency 211 

His wonderful power as a teacher 213 

His testimony concerning Himself 216 

His provision for the commemoration of His death 219 

The picture contemplated 220 

Demonstrates supernatural interposition 223 

LECTURE EIGHTH. 

CJe iRcbclation fij) OTIjrist. 

Christianity the result of the story of Christ 225 

Power of this story 226 

Proves the historic reality of Christ 22S 



CONTENTS. 1 3 



PAGE 

Christ gave a new idea of God 229 

Tlie divine Fatherhood and love 230 

Gave a new revelation of humanity 232 

Its influence on the thought of the world 233 

Christian thought of humanity as a whole 235 

The true socialism 236 

Brought in a new creating power 237 

What it has wrought 239 

The civilizing agencies it has constituted 241 

Christ authenticated a written revelation 243 

Summary of the revelation by Christ 247 

Shall we accept or reject Him ? . . . . , 249 

LECTURE NINTH. 

Review of the ground traversed 251 

False systems discriminated 253 

Atheism, polytheism, and dualism 253 

Pantheism, matei-ialism, and deism , . . . . 254 

The true philosophy reached 255 

Human history explained 257 

A manual of faith and life authenticated 258 

Marvellous composition of the Bible 259 

Its originality and inexhaustibleness 262 

Its power and creativeness 265 

Its preciousness to man 266 

A glorious Saviour presented 269 

The grandeur of His character and claims 269 

Attested by the gospel's success 272 

Christianity and Mohammedanism 273 

Our Christ 275 

LECTURE TENTH. 

Cj)e .Sup t: erne Uemanti. 

Paul in Athens 277 

His address on Mars' Hill 280 



14 CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The " ignorance " of pagan times 282 

Society under the Roman government 284 

The forbearance of God 286 

New responsibility under the gospel 2S8 

Repentance the supreme requirement 289 

The positive and absolute command of God 290 

"What this requirement meant 291 

To the heathen 292 

To the Jews 293 

To mankind in general 295 

To this God now holds men responsible 296 

Judgment must come at last 298 

In mercy God forewarns us of it 299 

LECTURE ELEVENTH. 

A parabolic dream 301 

A real picture 303 

What the gospel proposes and claims . . . , 305 

"Where shall we find a substitute for it ? 307 

Ancient heathenisms 308 

Modern heathenisms 309 

Mohammedanism 311 

Modern Judaism 312 

Infidel teachings 313 

The Darwinian theory 315 

No goodness without God 316 

Necromantic spiritism 319 

Learning and science 320 

All earthly attainments together 324 

The progress of the age 325 

Nothing but Jesus 327 

LECTURE TWELFTH. 

dFaiti) anti Onbelicf. 

What has now been presented 331 

The object had in view 332 



CONTENTS. 1 5 



PAGE 

Sad condition of confirmed skeptics 333 

Proud unbelief to be expected 337 

111 history of skepticism 338 

No necessity for unbelief 343 

The sincerity of skeptics questionable 343 

An infallible test 344 

Many other witnesses 347 

Completeness of the Christian evidences 348 

A consideration which should be decisive 350 

No risk in taking the side of faith 351 

Very different in taking the opposite 353 

Folly of waiting for demonstrations 355 

Question about hell for honest scruples 356 

Heaven and hell 357 

The glory of Christianity 358 



Kicking away the Crutch 361 

The Skeptic and the Clergyman 362 

The Testimony of an Old Disciple 366 

The Atheist and the Flower 369 

Random Readings 371 

It Proves Itself 373 

General Bertrand and Napoleon 374 



Right Life. 



LECTURE FIRST. 

Introtiuctors Consitierattong. 

Jer. 6 : i6 : Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, 
and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, 
and ye shall find rest for your souls. 

RIGHT LIFE — life properly directed, life con- 
ducted to its true goal and happiest consum- 
mation — is the subject called up in these words. It 
is the subject I have announced for a course of spe- 
cial Sunday evening lectures which I hope to make 
interesting and profitable to all, but which I intend 
particularly for young people who think, and for all 
people who doubt or have difficulties about the ele- 
ments of faith and Bible religion. 

I am impressed with the fact that we have fallen 
on a period of great mental disturbance and doubt, 
and hence of great danger to souls and to society. 
Perhaps there never was a time of more general men- 
tal activity, more tangled conflict of opinion, more 
unsettlement of ideas, or more uncertainty and con- 

2 17 



RIGHT LIFE. 



fusion in people's thoughts. This is not only in one 
direction, but in all directions. We are not troubled 
with invading armies, but every domain is invaded 
with revolutionary doctrines, beliefs and unbeliefs, 
particularly with regard to the verities and claims 
of true religion. 

Within a generation or two past there has come 
in an utilitarian philosophy, occupying itself chiefly 
with physical things and interests, but with results 
so brilliant and beneficent that it is now pressing for 
the supreme dominion of the human mind, to the 
depreciation and displacement of everything which 
does not fall into its train or move in harmony with 
its ends. It is not so much a theory or a system as 
a spirit. We cannot say that it is a bad spirit, for it 
has been doing the world a vast amount of good. 
It lengthens life; it mitigates pain; it lessens dis- 
ease; it builds bridges; it tunnels mountains; it 
guides and utilizes the lightnings ; it illuminates 
night with the splendors of day ; it accelerates mo- 
tion; it annihilates distance ; it facilitates intercourse; 
it conditions war ; it enables men to bring up treas- 
ures from the bowels of the earth ; it helps us to 
traverse continents in cars which whirl without 
horses, and the ocean in ships which push forward 
against wind and tide. All this is very good. It is 
not to be sneered at or undervalued. It is a conve- 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 1 9 

nient and pleasant thing to have our modern railway 
accommodations, to enjoy the warmth of grates and 
furnaces in winter, the light of gas and electricity, 
the daily newspaper, and the comfortable furniture 
and adornments of our modern homes. It is very 
agreeable to receive messages from distant friends 
and correspondents in a moment of time, or to con- 
verse with them through wire cables over miles and 
continents. It is well that our wives and daughters 
are saved the ancient drudgeries of the loom and the 
needle, that so much of our work is done by hands 
without nerves, and that there are competent physi- 
cians whom we can call in when we are in pain or 
sick. Everything which can thus curtail our toils 
and sufferings, or add to our powers, comforts, and 
pleasures, is to be valued and approved. 

But there is danger of super-exalting these physi- 
cal interests to worse damage than can be compen- 
sated for by all the good. The achievements in 
these lines have been so dazzling that the world is 
becoming intoxicated by them and rapidly losing its 
balance. People begin to feel and act as if material 
advancement comprehended all that we need look 
after, and are predisposed to treat what goes beyond 
the body and this world as of very minor worth. 
They have drunk so deep of the spirit of earthly 
progress as to think what used to be considered the 



20 RIGHT LIFE. 



most important things to occupy human attention as 
now comparatively indifferent. What formerly was 
rated as the higher science there is a tendency to 
discard as scarcely any science at all. Geometry' 
is of but little account, except as it may help to 
measure, weigh, and pack goods. Astronomy is 
hardly a valuable thing any more, except perhaps as 
it may enable men to verify degrees of latitude at 
sea, make almanacs, and regulate clocks. And 
colleges are deemed hardly deserving of support 
except as they may turn out experts in technics 
and practical utilities. As to the study of Greek, 
Latin, higher metaphysics, spiritual contemplations, 
inquiries into the mysteries and wants of the soul, 
and the burdening of time with the problems of 
faith and theology, people cannot see the good 
of Many begin to question what this grand world 
has to do with doctrines about a heaven and a hell, 
or what is the use of a God anyhow. These things 
are treated as abstractions about which nobody 
knows anything or is ever likely to know. Some 
are asking with a sort of sneer, What is faith ? 
What is truth? What is eternal right? What is 
anything that does not add to the sum of man's 
material comfort, wealth, prosperity, or glory as a 
dweller upon earth ? 

So the mental temper is, tending directly to an 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 21 

outright Epicureanism of thought and life, putting 
the soul and God and futurity and heavenly account- 
ability out of all consideration, while the prevailing 
sentiment is, " Let us eat, drink, and be merry ; for 
to-morrow we die." 

Our educational systems are also very defective 
in counteracting this materialistic and ultra-utilitarian 
spirit. 

Natural science is mostly in the lead, and natural 
science is occupied with material things and inter- 
ests, while many of its teachers are the propagandists 
of unproved theories which shut out the idea of a 
personal and overruling God, or confound Him 
with His works, consigning everything of miracle, 
mystery, or that goes beyond their observation, to 
the realm of the unknowable and the doubtful. With 
a large number of our most prominent scientists, 
the most accepted doctrine is that there may be a 
God and another life, or there may not be, the ques- 
tion being considered beyond solution in the present 
condition of human knowledge, and so is ignored.* 

* If we permit such men as R. A. Proctor to speak for them, 
" It is impossible to obtain from science any clear ideas respect- 
ing the ways or nature of the Deity, or even respecting the reality 
of an almighty personal God. . . . To speak in plain terms : so 
far as science is concerned, the idea of a personal God is incon- 
ceivable, as are all the attributes which religion recognizes in such 
a being." In other words, natural science is non-theistic and anti- 
Christian, while many of its professors hold all idea of God, revela- 



22 RIGHT LIFE. 



The general press, the influence of which has 
grown so powerful in our day, proceeds on the 
same assumption. 

Our public schools, from the nature of the case, 
are professedly neutral, and teach almost nothing 
of religious truth. As the state protects and sanc- 
tions all sects alike, it cannot allow any one of them 
to monopolize religious instruction in its schools, 
and so all are excluded. There must be nothing 
taught which is offensive to any class of believers 
or unbelievers ; and by the time everything is elim- 
inated to which any one objects there is nothing 
left but a few precepts of morality, with no adequate 
sanctions for their enforcement. Other means of re- 
ligious culture in families and the churches exist, but 
so far as respects the public schools our educated 
young people come out of them wholly untaught in 
the elements of piety and revealed religion, crude in 
all their conceptions about it, not half informed 
about its great facts and evidences, and rather pre- 
possessed against it, particularly against all positive 
creeds as mere bones of contention for fooHsh peo- 
ple to squabble over, with no good to any one. 
Hence they are the fit subjects for the propagandists 
of error and infidelity, or else, to satisfy religious 

tion, miracle, and eternal life to be absurd, and so put forth in their 
books and publications. 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 2$ 

feelings, they betake themselves to all sorts of 
goodish societies, which reject a distinctive faith, 
usurp Christian claims and credit, and set up a 
miserable nothingarianism, without discipline, over- 
sight, responsibility, instruction, sacraments, orderly 
worship, or anything of definite shape, as if it were 
the religion of Christ, or even something better than 
the Church which Christ has instituted. 

The result is that the proper churches are at a 
discount in the estimation of a large portion of the 
community, the great cause of human salvation is 
at a disadvantage, and people think themselves all 
right while they are very wrong. 

It is not thathuman nature is changed. It is not 
that people are not at all sincere and honest in their 
views and opinions. It is not that the world has 
outgrown the revelations and institutes of God. It 
is not that the way of truth and right life is not 
ascertainable. It is not that what swayed and con- 
trolled the minds and hearts of the best and great- 
est men of other times has become superannuated 
or powerless to make its way to the human con- 
science. It is not that adequate evidences are want- 
ing on which to build a true and sure faith. It is not 
that religion is unreasonable or superstitious. But 
the spirit of the times is so adverse, the readiness to 
take up with glittering novelties and revolutionary 



24 RIGHT LIFE. 



ideas is so great, and a large portion of the popula- 
tion has such poor and shrunken opportunities to 
become properly informed and fortified in what per- 
tains to a right Christianity, that they do not at all 
know how to handle themselves against the blatant 
insinuations and sneers of unbelief and doubt. If 
they are led off into a sullen indifference toward 
religion, or take up with erroneous ideas, feelings, 
and extravagances, or settle down into a general 
skepticism, it is often not so much their fault as 
owing to the fact that they have not had the ad- 
vantages of right instruction, and have lacked in 
the proper opportunities and means of coming to a 
better understanding of the foundations of faith. 

Though much of the infidelity that is in the world 
has come from some traditional prejudice, or revul- 
sion at wrong presentations on the part of religion- 
ists, or a piqued unwillingness to make faithful and 
honest examination, or some vain desire for notoriety, 
or an overweening pride of opinion and self-conceit, 
or a hatred of all thought of responsibility to a 
superior Power, or an indulged temper of spitcful- 
ness toward God, or a heart so perverse as to delight 
in what is shocking, profane, and blasphemous, — it 
would be very wrong to assume that it is so in every 
case. I am persuaded that many of our }-oung peo- 
ple, skilled mechanics, toilers in our manufactories, 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 25 

clerks, and employes of every description, as well 
as many of our educated classes, are indifferent, and 
skeptical, and averse to church and the religious 
profession, not because of any particular depravity 
of heart, but simply because they know no better, 
have never had a fair and proper presentation of the 
matter, and have not sought better information for 
the reason that they were not aware of its existence 
or had become unfavorably prejudiced through some 
sort of wrong treatment. Even the pulpits are apt 
to denounce all outsiders so indiscriminately as to 
confirm many in their adverse feelings and judg- 
ments. 

It is a deplorable mistake to assume that all non- 
believers are necessarily worse than other people, 
and that their lack of faith is from exceptional 
depravity. Of course, if there were no depravity in 
human nature we would have no unbelievers. It is 
also true that it is often the bad heart and abandoned 
life which lead people to deny God and to despise 
His word. There are very many instances in which 
the infidel position has come direct from a perverse 
will or a corrupted life. There are people who 
claim to be wiser than wisdom, are above being in- 
structed, malignantly set to resist whatever does not 
accord with their crude notions, and make no scruple 
of the means they use for the success of their wicked 



26 RIGHT LIFE. 



antagonism to everything sacred. It is useless to try 
to reason such into propriety. What can logic, 
reason, or fact do toward bringing him to a right 
mind whose whole nature is saturated with enmity 
to truth and God? And to trouble ourselves to. 
argue and debate with people whom we see and 
know to be hopelessly depraved is simply to waste 
strength for naught, and to give them place and 
honor to which they are in no wise entitled. Wicked 
spitefulness and wilful outlawry differ from honest 
error, and necessarily exclude and vacate proper 
fealty to truth and right, and we only weaken and 
betray our own cause and dishonor the truth itself 
by entering the lists to dispute with people of that 
order. In such cases we must rather follow the 
example of the apostle Paul in his dealing toward 
Elymas. Proving themselves so eminently the chil- 
dren of the devil and the enemies of all righteous- 
ness, we may pity them as victims of a hopeless 
wickedness, but it is not our business to answer 
their profane challenges, to hear their blasphemous 
utterances, or to reply to their jests and ribaldry. 
But when people err from lack of adequate instruc- 
tion or cannot see for want of proper light, and are 
honest and sincere in their doubts and opposition, as 
was Saul when he so sadly persecuted the Church 
of Christ, everything calls for a different treatment. 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 2/ 

Then we need to employ gentleness, patience, argu- 
ment, and discussion, that we may bring the truth 
to view, obviate difficulties, and open the way for 
candid souls to come to a right understanding and 
conclusion. What such persons need is not severity, 
but reasonable consideration and a frank canvassing 
of the grounds of faith with some competent in- 
structor, in the spirit of brotherhood, charity, and 
truth, that they may have a just opportunity to see 
and know and fairly conclude for themselves. 

Some, indeed, may be so made up in their own 
ways of thinking as to disdain the idea of changing 
their opinions or of coming to a different mind by 
listening to a few pulpit lectures. But unknown 
adventurers can get a hearing; creedless mounte- 
banks can get a hearing ; skeptical scientists can 
get a hearing ; even ribald ' blasphemers can get a 
hearing; and why not authorized ministers, when, 
without pretension and quite apart from the spirit 
of controversy, the glorification of sect, or a con- 
ceited sensationalism, they propose to give some 
frank presentations concerning the elements and 
foundations of what they believe to be essential to 
the placing of a human being in a right attitude in 
the universe? 

To this end, therefore, and with this view and 
temper, I propose this course of lectures. My 



28 RIGHT LIFE. 



design is simple, catholic, and direct. I wish to 
have some candid talks with my fellow-men on 
matters which I am persuaded are of supreme im- 
portance to every one that lives. I wish to bring 
the message of my God to bear upon them — the 
message which says, " Stand ye in the ways, and 
see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way^ 
and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your 
soids!' To this, then, I address myself, praying 
that Almighty God may bless and prosper the 
attempt to the good of souls and to the praise 
of His own holy Name. 

One of the first things in the adjustment of our- 
selves to a right life is an intelligent consciousness 
of who, what, and where we are. 

There be many people who have never been made 
to realize that they exist. They know of a certain 
relish and grasping for food, pleasure, and honor — of 
the going about of a form which they have seen in 
the mirror, which answers to a name, which has 
certain thoughts and aims, and which is betimes 
a little miserable ; but what it signifies they have 
never taken in. They are so far behind in rational 
self-consciousness that it would be to them some- 
thing of a startling revelation to have the full force 
of it suddenly flashed upon them that tJicy exist. 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 29 

But we arc. This is a matter of fact ; and it is a 
very momentous fact. How to go about proving 
our existence I do not exactly know. We do not 
doubt it for a moment, but for any one to furnish 
the logical proof of it is no easy thing. The phil- 
osopher Rene Descartes once determined that he 
would not believe he existed until he could prove 
it. He also thought he had found the proof. His 
argument was, " / think ; therefore I amy But if he 
had not begged the question by smuggling into his 
premises the very " I " which was to be proven, he 
never could have gotten it into his conclusion, and 
if faithful to his resolve he must have lived and died 
without logical evidence whether he existed or not. 
Of course he believed that he existed, and when our 
minds are turned to it we all feel quite sure that we 
exist ; but I know of no one who has been able to 
reason out a conclusive logical proof of his own 
existence. 

I mention this to show that we can be quite sure 
of certain truths without proofs of reason, and which 
reason is at a loss how to prove. We know them 
without reason, and we feel perfectly safe in accept- 
ing them without proofs. There is something in 
man which is deeper, clearer, and more certain than 
logical reasoning. There is in us a primal soil of 
thought and belief, precedent to reason, and from 



30 RIGHT LIFE. 



which reason proceeds — something which serves as 
the basis, starting-point, or original cell of thought 
and conviction — something which asserts itself to 
itself with a force and certainty as convincing as dem- 
onstration. We call it consciousness or intuition. It 
may be the result of reasoning which leaves no tracks, 
or an inherent aptitude for spontaneous convictions, -or 
some impress of the great Maker's fingers ; but, how- 
ever explained, there is something in us by which we 
realize the truth of certain axioms or assertions 
which do not admit of logical proof, and yet are 
so settled and clear to our convictions that no ar- 
gument or processes of reasoning can make tliem 
clearer than they are. At any rate, we are quite 
sure that we exist, although logic cannot prove it. 
But our being is not mere existence. It is life. 
Rocks and clods exist, but they do not live. Phil- 
osophers and scientists have been much at a loss to 
tell just what life is. It is to a great extent inde- 
finable, but it necessarily includes a power of feeling 
and motion not dependent on external causes. There 
is an animated nature as distinguished from inani- 
mate, and that which is animate has the power of 
feeling and self-action. We live ; therefore we arc 
self-active factors as well as facts, and so possess a 
form of being which is of effective consequence to 
the world and to ourselves. 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 3 I 

But, what IS more, we know we live. Here is 
self-conscious, intelligent personality. There is a 
word in our language consisting of one letter which 
is of intensest significance, and always written and 
printed in capital. That word is " I ;" and our 
ability to perceive and realize what we utter when 
we say " I " differentiates us from all the visible cre- 
ation around us. We call it the personal pronoun, 
because it stands for a rational personality. Brutes 
live^ but they do not knoiv they live. No mere brute 
has the rational self-consciousness to say " I," even 
if it had the vocal powers to do so. Brutes follow 
and obey what we call instinct, which serves as their 
wisdom in what relates to their welfare, but they 
know not what they do and follow. They are living 
machines, led and driven by instinct, about which 
they know nothing. They do not think. They may 
act wisely and shrewdly in emergencies, and some- 
times show dim signs of what we class among fac- 
ulties and operations of mind ; but it is the impress 
of mind outside of them. There is no proof that it 
is the product of self-conscious thought. Man is a 
being with life to its own life, having the high and 
mysterious endowment understandingly to say " I." 
In other words, man possesses a self-conscious spirit, 
intelligent, capable of directing his thinking and will, 
and so a moral beings subject to moral government, 



32 RIGHT LIFE. 



and responsible for his actions. We each possess an 
inner selfhood, or self-conscious individuality, by 
which we severally distinguish ourselves from all 
other beings, to which we refer all that we think, 
feel, do, and say, and by which we stand related to 
God, akin to God, and quite apart from mere brute 
creatures. 

Some would teach us that man is only a more 
highly-developed brute. If they mean that the 
dust out of which Adam's body was fashioned was 
first used to make monkeys, we may let them amuse 
themselves with the fancy, although they cannot 
prove it true. If they mean that man possesses 
a complete physical organization, embodying the 
perfection of what was less perfectly forecast in the 
animal kingdom preceding his creation, we find no 
cause for dispute with them. But if they mean that 
man as man is nothing but a more advanced animal, 
the same throughout in origin, nature, and destiny 
with the brute, they take issue with the best wisdom 
and teaching of all the known ages, contradict the 
common instinct and conviction of cur race, go 
against all the holy books, put forth an all-condi- 
tioning doctrine on a mere inference of faulty phil- 
osophy, without a single fact of demonstration on 
which to rest it,* and assert what, in its ver\' tonus 

* " All the facts which have fallen under our observation fail to sup- 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 33 

and alleged conditions, is utterly incapable of proof. 
No matter by whom broached or accepted, it is only 
a naked, unverified, and unverifiable theory — a mere 
inferential speculation from certain unwarranted gen- 
eralizations, captivating to some lively imaginations, 
but conceived in unbelief and loaded with perplex- 
ities which admit of no rational explanation. The 
implications are also so momentous that it would 
be very irrational to commit ourselves to a mere 
inferential and hypothetical conceit such as this 
is.* 

ply a single species certainly derived from another. Consecutiveness 
falls far short of logical proof of descent." — Winchell's Science and 
Religion, p. 172. 

'^ Prof. Louis Agassiz, to whom the world has paid homage as a 
scientist, says : " I wish to enter my protest against the transmutation 
theory." ..." It is my belief that naturalists are chasing a phan- 
tom in their search after some material gradation among created 
beings by which the whole animal kingdom may have been derived 
by successive development from a single germ or from a few germs." 
..." The development assertion does not bear serious examination. 
It is just one of those results following the disclosure or presentation 
of a great law which captivates the mind, and leads it to take that 
for truth which it wishes to be true." 

Max Mliller says : " It becomes our duty to warn the valiant dis- 
ciples of Mr. Darwin that before they can claim a real victory, before 
they can call man the descendant of a mute animal, they must lay a 
regular siege to a fortress which is not to be frightened into submis- 
sion by a few random shots — the fortress of language, which as yet 
stands untaken and unshaken on the very frontier between the ani- 
mal kingdom and man." 

Darwin himself says : " The most eminent palzeontologists, Cuvier, 
Agassiz, Barrand, Pictet, Falconer, E. Forbes, etc, and all our great 
geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, etc., have unanimously 
3 



34 RIGHT LIFE. 



All human language, consciousness, and activity 
argues a soul and spirit in man by which he stands 
related to Deity and eternity as no mere brute does 
or ever can. If brutes have di psychical life, a ^u^^', 
they have not pneumatic life, a nvEup.a. God, angels, 
and men have the latter, but no mere beasts have it. 
No matter how the body of man was originally fash- 
ioned out of the dust of the earth, when his physical 
organism was complete Deity " breathed into his nos- 
trils the breath of life, and man became a living soid ;'^ 
and by this part in his creation he v/as and is distin- 
guished from all the beasts of the earth and all 
cattle. 

Though man is a corporeal being, his more distin- 

and often maintained the immutability of species," and hence that 
man could not have been derived from brutes and ascidians. 

*' Even if other parts of the Darwinian hypothesis were true," says 
the Speaker's Conwientaiy on Genesis, " there is not a vestige of evi- 
dence that there ever existed any beast intermediate between apes 
and men. Apes, too, are by no means the nearest to us in intelli- 
gence or moral sense, or in their food and other habits. It also de- 
serves to be borne in mind that even if it could be made probable 
that man is only an improved ape, no physiological reason can touch 
the question whether God did not, when the improvement had reached 
its right point, breathe into him ' a living soul ' — a ' spirit which goeth 
upward ' when bodily life ceases. This at least would have consti- 
tuted Adam a new creature and the fountain-head of a new race." 

" If, as we rightly believe, our mind is in possession of a treasure 
of innate, necessary truth, we certainly commit the first and greatest 
sin against the nature of that truth when we ascribe to it any origin 
wliich implies that even its content is not due solely to the creative 
power of God." — Lotzo's Microcosinus, i. p. 3S9. 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 35 

guishing characteristic is a rational and self-conscious 
spirit, the proper Ego, or /, which knows, thinks, 
feels, chooses, and wills, and lives to a sphere of 
things to which the brute is a total alien and for 
which it has no capacity. As human beings our 
adaptabilities and powers ally us to heavenly orders 
and supernal realms. By nature we connect with a 
spiritual world. We have aptitudes that go beyond 
material things, and elements of being which must 
thrive or pine as they have the kingdom of spiritual 
realities in which to feed and exercise.* 

* " Brutes never diverge noticeably from the sphere of ideas and 
aims proper to their species. In the mental life of the human race 
there are immense differences. There are certain definite features, 
characteristic modes of working, which occur in all human souls, 
bringing them together in a common class. ... A clear conscious- 
ness of the existence of universal and necessary truth raises the cog- 
nition of the human mind above such trains of ideas as occur in the 
psychic life of brutes. . . . The self-judging conscience, and the 
ineradicable idea of binding duty which in us accompanies action 
and feeling, distinguish human creatures as members of a realm of 
mind from brutes, whose vital activity depends upon feeling merely. 
If we choose to sum up, we may say that the capacity of becoming 
conscious of the Infinite is the distinguishing endowment of the 
human mind." — Lotze's Microcosmus, i, pp. 713, 714. 

The king of Prussia, during a stay at Rugen, amused himself with 
the children, showing them various objects and having them tell him 
to what kingdom — animal, mineral, or vegetable — each belonged. 
Finally, he pointed to himself and said, " To what kingdom do I 
belong?" One of the children answered, " To the kingdom of 
heaven." And that is just the difference between a man and a brute. 
Man belongs to a heavenly kingdom, of which brutes know nothing, 
and with which they have nothing to do as brutes. Man can know 



36 RIGHT LIFE. 



And the fact of our existence is all the more im- 
pressive as there can be no recession from it. Our 
being is a thing fixed beyond recall or change. It 
cannot be negatived or renounced. We ai'e^ and no 
created power can undo it. Many things lie within 
human choice and may be changed by the human 
will, but our existence is not one of them. We are 
what a superior Power has made us, and there is no 
getting out of it. We may call ourselves mere 
physical organisms presently to evanish into the 
crude elements again, and live and act as if we 
were ; but that will not make it so. We may greatly 
influence the condition of our existence, for we have 
powers of choice in the disposing of our lives, and 
are not bound down like brutes to the force of an 
unvarying instinct; but we cannot elect not to be, or 
to be other in the scale of being than we are. We 

his Maker and pray to Him and have communion with Him. He 
has a spiritual and religious nature and Godward aspirations and ca- 
pacities, and can dedicate his thoughts and energies to the eternal 
Source of all things. The existence of the brute is only sensuous. 
Man, though corporeal also, is capable of spiritual life. Though in 
part earthly and temporal, he has relations to eternity of which he 
can become happily conscious, and while on earth he can have con- 
versation and fellowship with Heaven and live to things divine and 
eternal, 

" The highest essential point of superiority in man above the irra- 
tional creation consists in this, that he is capable of religion, that he 
can know God and His law, that he is created for the purpose of re- 
sembling and loving his Maker." — Sartorius's Person and Work of 
Christ, lee. vi. 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 3/ 

are not birds, and we cannot make ourselves birds. 
We are not mere brutes, and we cannot transfer our- 
selves out of our own sphere of life into theirs. We 
may pamper the flesh to the detriment of the spirit, 
but we cannot unmake our nature so as to escape 
the ills of such a tyranny over our better self We 
may kill the body, but we cannot kill the soul. We 
are, and we must needs abide by it. 

But the fact that we a^'e what we are goes still far- 
ther. Our existence is not a mere now — not a mere 
tick of the pendulum of time — not a mere moment- 
ary flash, which is, and then is no more. It is the 
A which must have a B and a C. It is a start which 
necessitates a further history. The chapter begun 
must have some sort of continuity. The vessel once 
launched, something must come of it. Facts must 
have consequents. We are ; therefore something 
more must be. Being which cannot be killed nor 
escaped from must have a future. The now involves 
a hereafter. This is the inevitable implication of 
living at all. 

But there is still another feature to the case. 
There is a limit of time and opportunity for making 
the best of life. There was a period when we were 
not, and there will come one when we will no longer 
be as now. Going back through the years, we come 
to a time when there was nothing of us. For any 



38 RIGHT LIFE. 



use, appropriation, or experience of our life there 
was then no place ; for it was not. And so at a very 
limited distance in the future this present life is to 
cease. There is such a thing as death. We do not 
know exactly what it is. Reason cannot compre- 
hend or construe it, but all our observation is to the 
effect that it is universal and inevitable. Everything 
tells us that " it is appointed unto men once to die," 
and no advances in human science can rescind that 
decree. 

To some people's philosophy death is the total dis- 
sipation of our existence, the recommittal of body and 
soul to nothingness. On this point I would fain hope 
that we have come at least as far as Socrates and Plato, 
recognizing in man a soul or spirit which does not 
decompose and perish with the fall of the body. 
Even these heathen had other ideas of death than 
to regard it as an everlasting farewell to all that is. 
But no matter for our philosophy or our faith, as 
far as we know death is every one's appointed por- 
tion, and when it comes this present life, with all its 
activities, joys, and sorrows, is at an end. 

Hence, if anything good or blessed, whether here 
or hereafter, is to be made of our existence, it must 
be done in this interval between our birth and our 
death. We could not make an}-thing of life before 
we had it, and we cannot make an)'thing of it after 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 39 

it is gone. Thus this narrow neck of land on which 
our hves are cast, lying as it does between two im- 
measurable seas, assumes a character of tremendous 
importance. 

Some speak contemptuously of this present life. 
The old classic literature is specially sad on this 
point. Even Shakespeare calls life " but a walking 
shadow " — " a tale told by an idiot, full of sound 
and fury, signifying nothing." And, compared with 
the majesty of eternal being, " it is but a vapor, that 
appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away." 
But nothing to us is more momentous or more 
thronged with all the great privileges, opportunities, 
and dangers of existence, than just this brief and 
much-abused life. Whether there be anything after 
death or not, everything of excellence, good, and 
honorable achievement that is to come of our exist- 
ence must be wrought in this narrow space between 
our cradles and our graves. This vanishing now is 
the theatre on which the game is being played for 
all the highest stakes of our being, be they what 
they may. The complex wheel of ongoing things 
has turned us out upon this stage, here in this span 
of earthly life, to determine all. We cannot post- 
pone, we cannot escape. We must here make the 
great decision. Stubborn refusal or silly indiffer- 
ence cannot exempt us. A man can no more get 



40 RIGHT LIFE, 



away from the imperious necessity in this respect 
than he can get away from his own being. Failure 
to accept the situation cannot change it, and not to 
invest for the profits is to lose our chance for ever. 

And what if the deeds of this life are the plant- 
ings to condition a whole eternity of being ? What 
if the way we spend these swift-passing years is de- 
veloping for us an unfading heaven or an ever-burn- 
ing hell ? What if these daily doings are creat- 
ing upon us a character of blest or unblest being 
which death makes eternally unalterable ? What if 
these heart-throbs in passing through the struggles 
of this present life are registering the elements of 
destiny for the years that never end? 

And who can say that it is not so ? What proof 
to the contrary has any one to give? Why may 
not the belief of the ages in this respect turn out 
to be correct? And if it should, as I believe it 
must, then how unspeakably momentous to us is 
this fleeting life ! Call it a dream, a breath, an id- 
iot's empty story, a bubble to burst and disappear; 
it yet is freighted with mighty things. Out of it 
come the diamonds and rubies and riches of a peer- 
less blessedness, or the burning ashes, shame, and 
wretchedness of a woe-doomed immortality. Surely 
that is not a trifle or a jest " which bears our souls 
upon its wing and fashions our eternit}'." 



INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS. 4 1 

And how important, then, that we should see and 
know what Right Life is — what set and direction to 
give to these mysterious natures with which we find 
ourselves embarked upon this dangerous sea of time 
— how to think and handle ourselves for a successful 
voyage to the happy shores ! To be in doubt and 
darkness in a case like this involves immeasurable 
perils. If we suffer ourselves to be misled by our 
own imaginings, or are content to drift with the cur- 
rent without knowing whither, or yield to the siren 
songs of earthly ease and pleasure, all the probabili- 
ties are that we shall make a wreck of our eternal 
fortunes. Eager should we be to get all the light 
we can. Light there also is if we but seek it. Even 
a feeble star may serve us well if we do but rightly 
observe it. The humblest peasant familiar with the 
ways can safely direct the bewildered traveler where 
all his great learning and all his own thinking cannot 
avail. And it becomes us, dear friends, to gaiher up 
all the sound instruction within our reach, and to 
weigh and husband it well, that if in the clouded 
condition of our faculties we err, we may err on 
the side of safety, and not miss the goal for which 
we have our being. 



LECTURE SECOND. 

€\it Existence of ffiotr. 

Psalm 14 : i : The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. 

THE question of the divine existence lies at the 
very foundation of the question as to what is 
Right Life. If there be no God, then a vast deal in 
the thoughts, feelings, and activities of man would 
be wholly out of place which would otherwise be 
very reasonable and proper. If there be no God, 
then all religion is nonsense, the science of theology 
nothing but empty twaddle, and regard to conscience, 
accountability, and immortality a superstitious incu- 
bus upon natural liberty ; while if there be a God, a 
wholly different conclusion must, in all just reason, 
be accepted. It is not possible, therefore, to treat 
of Right Life without involving the question of the 
divine existence. 

If there be a God — which it seems to me almost 
blasphemous to doubt — He must needs be self-ex- 
istent, almighty, and eternal, possessing all perfec- 
tions and infinite in all the elements and attributes 

43 



44 RIGHT LIFE. 



of His nature. The whole conception implies and 
includes this. If God is^ He must be greater than 
the universe, absolute Commander of all its forces, 
and the Source, Fashioner, Preserver, and Ruler of 
everything in it — the Alpha and Omega, the Begin- 
ning and the Ending, of whatever is. 

Such a Being is necessarily entitled to our su- 
preme regard and devoutest veneration. Living, 
moving, and having our being in Him, there is noth- 
ing comparable to Him to command our thoughts, 
feelings, and interest — nothing to be so feared, loved, 
trusted, and honored as He. But all this grasps so 
deeply into everything that pertains to life that life 
cannot be right without practical acknowledgment 
that He is. Everything is beset with clouds and 
hangs in uncertainty so long as it remains unsettled 
whether God is or is not. 

Let us inquire, then, 

Is THERE A God? 
The mere raising of such a question startles us, 
and produces a jar in the machinery of our being. 
We instinctively feel that God is, and necessarily 
must be. To have it thrown into doubt comes into 
the soul like a cyclone, tearing up the growths of 
our thinking from their roots, and levelling all our 
mental buildings and dwelling-places with the tkist. 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 45 



Our entire nature revolts at any question on the 
subject. 

And yet the point is raised in many minds and 
troubles many honest souls. There be some who 
have reasoned themselves into the utter denial of 
the divine existence ; others have been brought to a 
dismission of the subject as one about which it is 
impossible to come to available knowledge ; while 
still others are so indifferent as never to have con- 
cerned themselves to think whether there is a God 
or not. Modern thought is full of theories tending 
to atheism, if men do not avow it, and the world 
abounds with an atheism of temper and life. And 
so deeply has this spirit of doubt and indifference 
been permeating the common mind and heart that 
the great question no longer is as to what system of 
religion is to be accepted, what sect is to be adhered 
to, what kind of services and devotions are to be 
rendered to God, but whether, indeed, there is any 
God at all. It is therefore forced upon us to deal 
with this question. We need to begin again with 
" the first principles," if possible " to save some " 
from the disastrous current which is sweeping so 
large a part of the world into atheistic godlessness. 
And to this question of the existence of a God I 
devote this lecture, hoping that those who have no 
doubts on the subject will not become impatient 



46 RIGHT LIFE. 



with the sort of discussion which the nature of the 
question renders unavoidable. 

Some have held that the idea of a God is innate 
in man. Perhaps we ought not to insist upon that. 
But whether the idea be innate or not, it is so nat- 
ural, so easy, and so entirely agreeable to our feel- 
ings, consciousness, and reason, that the overwhelm- 
ing majority of mankind, in all known ages, nations, 
and conditions, has accepted it and held to it* 

The Bible nowhere proposes to prove there is a 
God, but everywhere presents the divine existence 
as an obvious and settled verity which no man can 
sanely deny or contradict. All the holy books of 

* " No people is without a consciousness of God. Atheists have 
had an interest in discovering a nation of atheists, but their efforts 
have been in vain. The negroes of Africa, the dark New Hol- 
landers, the wild Indians of America, have all been acquainted with 
a higher Being. Even where it was first supposed that the opposite 
was the case, this supposition has been found to be the result of su- 
perficial observation. And even investigators more alien from Chris- 
tianity (such as Waiz) acknowledged that at least a belief in invisible, 
mysterious, spiritual powers exists where higher notions of gods, 
properly so called, are absent. Certainly, nations and tribes are ca- 
pable of sinking to an almost animal savageness and stupidity of 
intellect. But this is a degenerate, and not a natural, condition, and 
even then the notion of a God is not utterly obliterated. And, ac- 
cording to Cicero's well-known argument, that which is so universal, 
as all agree, cannot be false." — Luthardt's Fundamctital Tnif/is, 
p. 41. 

" So far as I can judge from the immense mass of accessible evi- 
dence, we have to admit that the belief in spiritual beings appeare 
among all low races with whom wc have attained to llioroughly in- 
timate acquaintance." — Tylor's Primitive Cu/Zur, , vol. i. p. 3S4. 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 47 

all peoples likewise assume it as one of those pri- 
mordial things without which right thinking is dis- 
abled and the whole system of the universe is out 
of joint. The human soul takes it in as naturally 
as a babe takes in its mother's milk. There is 
something in our nature which gravitates toward it, 
and has such a strong instinct and affinity for it that 
the soul lays hold of it by a sort of spontaneity.* 

* " We do not merely believe that there is a God, but we ktiow it in 
virtue of an ideal cognition consisting in an immediate act of faith 
in human consciousness. And this very fact that a direct certainty 
of God exists in our minds per se is the most simple refutation of 
atheism. It is not as if the idea of God were in its complete shape 
innate in our minds. Rather, the idea of God develops itself along 
with the ideas of our own personality and the cosmos through con- 
tact with the outward world, of necessity, from the inward predispo- 
sition of our mental and moral constitution. Man, in becoming con- 
scious of his own personality, becomes at the same time conscious 
of his state as a conditioned and limited being ; from which follows, 
as a necessaiy corollary, the acknowledgment that there must be a 
Being who is absolute and unconditioned." — Christlieb's Modern 
Doubt, p. 141. 

" These four primordial intuitions — the intuition of causality, the 
intuition of intelligence, the intuition of right and wrong, and the 
intuition of goodness — supply our minds with the necessary concepts 
of infinite power, infinite intelligence, infinite justice, and infinite 
goodness; while the intuition of real being affirms that these are 
necessarily the attributes of real being, and that being, endowed 
with these attributes, is God. . . . We are bound to this conclusion. 
Whether an intuition direct or a spontaneous deductive conclusion 
from the axioms of reason, we know not how to evade it. The con- 
viction of its truth comes into our minds, imbeds itself there ; it sets 
up a dominion there ; it sways a sceptre over our lives and over all 
human lives. And, still more, we gladly receive it." — Winchell's 
Science and Religion, p. 199. 



48 RIGHT LIFE. 



When the idea of a God is first presented to the 
mind as a clearly-shapen thought, many questions 
may suggest themselves ; for it is so vast and mighty 
a thing that it can only be grasped seminally and in 
fractions ; but they are all in the line and interest of 
faith, and not of doubt or unbelief. It is only after- 
ward, when man has learned to dispute with his own 
intuitions, and natural reason has been turned by the 
perverting power of passion, self-importance, or in- 
tellectual pride, and the voice of inner consciousness 
is stifled with regard to ever^^thing not demonstrable 
to the senses or proven by logic, that the human 
soul becomes atheistic. 

The normal condition of man the world over has 
been that of a worshipping being, pervaded with a 
lively sense of some almighty Power on whose will 
and pleasure he continually depends. The feeling is 
everywhere that tJiere imist be a God. We can hardly 
think at all, or form any intelligent ideas of the world 
or ourselves, without the idea of an eternal Creator. 
Everything involves it and calls for it. We are em- 
barrassed on every side, and the whole flow of our 
spiritual nature is disturbed and obstructed, until it 
is admitted. It also fits to conscience, reason, and 
all our intuitions as the seal fits into the impression 
it has made. Faith in it comes as naturally as the 
knowledge of our mother-tongue or the affections 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 49 

of home, and to get rid of it requires a degree of 
violence to our natural feelings. Nature ever fights 
against unbelief Atheism is not a necessity of 
reason. To become an atheist, a man must set his 
will arbitrarily to work and reason himself into a 
strange position, and force his mind to a watchful 
antagonism toward its own deepest tendencies. And 
even when he has done his utmost he is still not 
clean away from what he denies, but is ever search- 
ing for some ideal substitute to fill up a vacancy 
created by his unbelief. Having consigned the true 
God to the limbo of dying superstitions, the wronged 
energies and affections of his soul still gather around 
some vague fancy, memory, or ideal beauty which he 
sets on a throne of sacred worship. Nay, " where 
religious faculties live, and religious tendencies work 
in the way and degree Nature bids, there may be su- 
perstition, but there cannot be atheism." As physi- 
cal nature abhors a vacuum, so our spiritual nature 
abhors a Godless universe. 

We have only to observe the frequent manifesta- 
tions on the part of professed atheists in moments 
of sudden danger and when they are off their guard, 
the horrors which have so often attended them on 
their deathbeds, and the total changes of mind and 
repentant confessions which have again and again 
occurred among them when about to be launched 



50 RIGHT LIFE. 



into eternity, to make us doubt whether it is a thing 
possible to man to become a thorough and consistent 
atheist. The indications are that in spite of all his 
proud reasoning and confident assertions there is 
still a something in him which is all the while pro- 
testing against his unbelief.* Even in the every-day 
affairs of life the most skeptical are continually act- 
ing a degree and kind of faith in the very Deity 
whose existence they deny. 

Whoever plants a leaf beneath the sod, 
And waits to see it push away the clod. 

He trusts in God. 
"Whoever says, when clouds are in the sky, 
" Be patient, heart, light breaketh by and by," 
Trusts the Most High. 

* " It has been said, not without good reason, that atheism never 
really existed as a full conviction in any human breast, and that there 
is always an underlying self-deception whenever any one professes to 
be a pure atheist. That he should make this idle notion (that no 
God exists) his permanent conviction, and that he should not, when 
denying the Christian's God, venerate aught else as the divine Power, 
is difficult to believe." — Christlieb's Modern Doubt, p. 140. 

" When Archdeacon Farrar was here he talked to you a good deal 
about an imaginary being that he called ' the atheist.' But it is prob- 
able that not one of his hearers ever met an atheist. Why, there is 
not a single sensible and thoroughly educated atheist alive on earth 
to-day. It is a species as extinct as the dodo." — Evolution and Re- 
ligion, by M. J. Savage, pp. 3, 42. 

" I take it for granted that there never was a complete and abso- 
lute skeptic." — Pascal's Thoughts on Religion, chap. xxi. 

Some men profess atheism, but it is an empty profession. 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 5 I 

Whoever sees 'neath winter's field of snow 
The silent harvest of the future grow, 

God's power doth know. 
Whoe'er lies down upon his couch to sleep, 
Content to lock each sense in slumber deep, 

Feels God will keep. 
Whoever says, " To-morrow," "The Unknown," 
" The Future," trusteth to that Power alone 

He dares disown. 

The existence of a God, as I take it, is not so 
much a thing to be proven by logical reasoning as a 
thing verified in spiritual consciousness and the 
spontaneous conviction of a right soul. It has been 
said that " a God who can be proved is no God, for 
the reason that the ground of proof is necessarily 
above the thing proven ;" which cannot be in the 
case of God. But we need not insist on such ex- 
treme ground. There be many trains of argument 
going to satisfy reason that there is and must be a 
God, though they are rather interpretations of a 
heart-belief already existing, or an analysis of what 
is already rooted in human consciousness, than the 
demonstration of it. 

To demand syllogistic proofs of the divine exist- 
ence is like refusing to believe that we are alive until 
it is proven to us by logical reasoning. I might 
ask, Who among my hearers doubts that he exists ? 
Yet who of you can give a logical proof of what 



52 RIGHT LIFE. 



you hold so certain ? You know that you exist, and 
nothing can shake your confidence on that point; 
but you can no more prove it by processes of rea- 
soning than a crab can fly. It is a thing of your 
own consciousness, and that consciousness alone is 
enough to make it indubitable to you that you exist, 
and that it cannot be otherwise than that you are. 
It is after the same manner that the divine existence 
evidences itself to the human consciousness where- 
ever that consciousness is left free to act and testify. 
When the enunciation of a God is made to the soul 
there is a native susceptibility and Godwardness of 
nature to answer to it, and which, if not otherwise 
tampered with and perverted, takes on the belief and 
conviction that so it is and must needs be, requiring 
no logical processes to make it any more clear or 
certain. The element is already present, and, like 
gas, only needs the touch of the spark to make 
everything luminous and evident in its own light.* 
Let me ask, again. On what ground do we believe 
in the existence of the material world ? On nothing 
but impressions made upon our outward senses 

"^ " The heart has its arguments with which reason is not ac- 
quainted. We feel this in a thousand instances. It is the heart 
which feels God, and not reason. This is perfect faith, C7<'</ kmyicn 
to the hcartr — Pascal's Thoughts on Religion, chap, xxviii. 

The poet Dante sings the thought: "There is an upper light 
which makes the Creator visible to the creature, who fnids its peace 
in the vision of Him." 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 53 

which lead the mind intuitively to conclude that 
matter exists. There is no other evidence whatever 
to prove to us that there is a material world. But 
the direct sensations or perceptions of the soul are 
certainly as reliable as the sensations of the body. 
And as the bodily senses witness conclusively to the 
existence of matter, so can our mental perceptions 
of a God, and of the necessity for His existence, 
witness with equal certainty that He is. 

But this is such a sensuous age that many people 
insist on seeing, or its equivalent, before believing. 
They say with Philip, " Show us the Father, and it 
sufficeth us." But it is a most unreasonable de- 
mand. Who ever saw a pain ? Who so big a fool 
as to say, " Show us a pain, that we may know 
whether or not there is such a thing " ? No man 
ever saw a pain, or heard a pain, or smelt a pain, or 
tasted a pain ; yet no one doubts that there is such a 
thing as pain. You believe it because you hdcv^felt 
it, and that is quite enough to satisfy you on the 
subject. Why, then, may not the feeling of the soul 
that there is and must be a God suffice to make us 
equally certain that He is ? 

Who of you has ever seen a mind? By what 
bodily sense has any one been able to detect the 
existence of such a thing ? Yet who of you for a 
moment doubts that mind exists ? Or who has ever 



54 RIGHT LIFE. 



seen a thought, or is able to cognize one by the cor- 
poreal senses ? Only mind can perceive and know 
mind, and that mental cognition satisfies and con- 
vinces that mind or thought exists. And why can 
we not perceive, know, and be sure of the existence 
of God in the same way ? 

Or, again, how do we know the existence of each 
other? You believe that I exist, and that I am 
speaking to you now ; how do you know it ? 
What are the proofs of it that satisfy you on this 
point ? You may say that you see me and hear me, 
and therefore you know that I am and that I am 
here. Not quite so fast, dear friends. No one of 
you can truthfully affirm that you ever heard or 
saw a man. You see an outward form ; you hear 
a voice ; you behold motions and actions ; you per- 
ceive various manifestations ; and from these you 
are convinced of the presence of a rational being 
which you have been taught to call a man. But 
what you see is not the man. The hidden life, 
the invisible spirit, the soul, intellect, feeling, and 
thought, which cannot be reached or perceived 
by the bodily senses, are the real man. Man is 
what his soul is, not what he eats. And what you 
sec and all that the senses can perceive — the form, 
motions, actions, voice, and significations — are not 
the man ; they are only the effects and material indi- 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 55 

cations of an invisible and spiritual something ex- 
pressing itself by them. The true man is as hidden 
and unapproachable to our sight as God himself. 
How, then, do you know that the true man is ? 
You know it, and intuitively believe it, merely from 
the effects or products of which the true inward man 
is the centre and the cause. In the very same way, 
then, we may equally know and be sure of the exist- 
ence of a God. In the world within us and in the 
universe of things around us we perceive a vast 
variety of effects and manifestations which could 
only come from some active and potent spiritual 
Cause. And if the sensible effects and manifesta- 
tions in the one case are competent to prove the 
existence of what we call a man, the effects and 
manifestations in the other case must be equally 
competent to prove the existence of what we call 
God. 

By the testimony of our senses we are assured 
that a vast mass of things, in multiform orders and 
relations, now exists. And as something exists now, 
something must have existed from eternity, for out of 
nothing, nothing of itself can come. If there was a 
time when absolutely nothing was, then what is 
never could have been, and nothing would be now. 
But something is, therefore something must have 
been always. We say that that eternal something 



56 RIGHT LIFE. 



is God, "from whom all things proceed, and on 
whom all creatures depend." Those who would 
rid themselves of this belief affirm that matter is 
the only eternal thing, and that all else has been 
evolved from matter by chance or by its own in- 
herent properties, without any agency of an intelli- 
gent and eternal God. 

Now, if matter is eternal, it must have existed 
once in a mere chaos of its elements, or else it 
always was in the form and order in which we now 
find it. No one affirms the latter.* But if matter 
existed once in chaos, it must for ever have re- 
mained chaos, for what is eternal must necessarily 
be immutable. It is against all reason and experi- 
ence for what in its nature and condition is a mere 
chaos ever of itself to become arranged into the 
intelligent order in which we now find everything. 
It is inconceivable and impossible that such a 
change could occur in an eternal dead thing with- 
out the bringing to bear upon it some intelligent 
force or power from beyond itself Eternal chaos is 
nothing but eternal chaos, and an orderly universe 
from it alone is a self-contradiction and impossible. 

To say that things just happened so by some un- 
designed coincidence or fortuitous concourse of 

* Huxley says: "The hypothesis of the eternity of the present 
condition of things must be put out of couit altogetlier," 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 57 

atoms is to use words without meaning or to as- 
sume something which has no knowable existence. 
According to all knowledge and experience of man, 
where there is intelligent order there must be an 
intelligent potency to beget and induce it. Where 
there is law there must be a Lawgiver to originate 
and enforce that law. Where there is life there 
must be a living Dispenser of life who has life in 
Himself. Where there is good and beauty there 
must be a living and potential bosom from which 
they issue. And capacity to know and enjoy must 
have a knowing and beneficent Intelligence from 
which it has sprung. 

A nothing cannot have a tendency to become 
something, much less to originate life and order ; 
and chaos is a nothing so far as respects order, or- 
ganization, and life. Chance, accident, fortuitous 
concourse in mindless chaos is unthinkable, except 
as, everywhere and always, disorder, confusion, and 
darkness, and never as tending to system, life, or 
intelligence. 

Suppose we ask. Where did life come from ? 
Those who deny the existence of an eternal God 
can give no answer. They cannot so much as tell 
which was first, the hen or the ^%^. Because or- 
ganized structures and living creatures have prop- 
erties necessary to the fulfilment of the functions of 



58 RIGHT LIFE. 



life, they conclude that all is explained by these 
properties, and decline to look any farther, on the 
plea that it is beyond the power of man to know, 
because observation cannot extend so far. Even on 
their evolution theory they can get no farther back 
than to some primal cell. But we press the ques- 
tion. Where did the cell come from ? A cell em- 
bodying the germ of organic life is something wholly 
different from mere inorganic matter. It has been 
said that there is nothing in organic that is not in 
inorganic matter ; which is a plain untruth. Organic 
matter has organs, sensation, and life ; inorganic 
matter has neither. Inorganic matter is incapable 
either of growth or decay ; organisms are capable 
of both. Matter inorganic simply is, and is abun- 
dantly capable of being operated upon by a living 
will or life-principle, but totally without any self- 
power to become or produce something different 
from its own dead properties. If inorganic matter 
has in it any self-power to become or to produce 
cell-life, what is the reason that no chemical ex- 
perimentation with it has ever been able to produce 
or detect anything of the sort? Chemical experi- 
ment has succeeded in creating or discovering most 
of the proximate principles which mere matter con- 
tains, but never once has it been able to create or 
produce anything having the character o{ life. A 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 59 

proximate principle is yet an infinite remove from 
an organism, or the remotest rudiment of an organ, 
or a living being; and no organicism has ever been 
able to cross that gulf* Evolutionists are just as 
much at a loss to account for the first cell from 
which they would derive all organic life as they are 
to account for the infinite variety in the forms of 
organic being. Every cell or life-germ is from some 
preceding life, and potentially embodies an ideal 
toward which alone it develops. Whence this ideal ? 
What ideas has dead matter ? No God, no life, is 
still the doctrine of chemistry as of everything else. 
God is needed for the cell as well as for the soul.\ 

* M. Berthelot, in his La Synthese chimique, says : " No chemist 
can pretend to form in his laboratory a leaf, fruit, muscle, or organ," 

f Even Hseckel admits that " he who does not assume [mark, as- 
sume] a spontaneous generation of monera [protoplasmic life-cells] 
to explain the first origin of life upon our earth, has no other resource 
but to believe in a supernatural miracle." — Ev. of Man, ii. p. 32. 

"Spontaneous generation," indeed! "spontaneous generation" 
assumed ! — assumed because there is no other outcome for the ma- 
terialistic philosophy. In a professed derivation of all life and mind 
from dead matter by purely mechanical forces, what right is there for 
assuming anything, much less what has never been observed in the 
heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth ? 
What particle of evidence can any scientist produce to show that 
"spontaneous generation " is anything but a chimera conjured up in 
the human brain by the heated purpose to fight the living God out 
of His universe ? 

Virchow, one of the greatest scientists and freest thinkers, ac- 
knowledges the great convenience to atheistic philosophy which the 
assumption of the theory of "spontaneous generation" would be, 



6o RIGHT LIFE. 



Chance, accident, and all the properties of inorganic 
matter, as far as man can see or know or judge, are 
wholly incompetent to explain the origin of life. 

Select what dead atoms you please, and shake 
them from one year's end to the other, or operate 
upon them with all the agents and reagents of chem- 
istry, but no form of organized being comes of them. 
Take ten thousand, or as many thousand thousand, 
letters of the alphabet, and stir and whirl them pro- 
miscuously in any way for any length of time, but 
never will they fall together in one intelligible sen- 
tence, much less yield us an Iliad or a Paradise Lost. 
How, then, could this grand poem of the universe 
with all its living cantos have happened out of the 
helter-skelter agitation of its chaotic atoms, whether 
by evolution or any other sort of motion ? Nay, 
how did motion itself ever originate without will ? 
And how, then, could all this sublime economy of 

and refers to the strong temptation for materialists to take shelter 
under it to avoid the doctrine of a supernatural power, but adds : 
" No one can adduce a single positive fact in evidence that such 
spontaneous generation ever took place, or that an inorganic mass of 
a certain favored group of atoms, Carbon and Co., was ever trans- 
formed into an organic mass. All attempts to find a place for it 
have lamentably failed. Nevertheless, there is no alternative but 
spontaneous generation, unless we recur to creation. Tcrtium tion 
datur^ — Address in Munich, 1876. 

Thus, then, our materialistic philosophers must build their whole 
theory upon a purely gratuitous assumption, or, they themselves being 
judges, there must be a God. 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 6 1 



worlds and kingdoms of order, motion, life, beauty, 
glory, and self-conscious mind have had self-origin 
out of a blind, senseless, mindless conglomeration 
of dead matter ? It is an insult to the human un- 
derstanding to broach such an idea. 

And if the universe did not and could not make 
itself, or come by chance, then there must be an eter- 
nal, omnipotent, and good God by whom it was 
made and is upheld and governed. 

It was the saying of the great Bacon : " I had 
rather believe all the fables in legend and the Tal- 
mud and the Alcoran than that this universal frame 
is without a Mind." 

Well and truly also did the great Roman prince 
of the forum declaim against the philosophers of his 
day who asserted that the world was made by 
chance or necessity, and not rather by an intelligent 
divine Power, assuming as they did " that Archim- 
edes had more concern in imitating the motions of 
the sphere than nature had in effecting them." " If 
art effects nothing without mind," says he, " and the 
things formed by nature are better than those exe- 
cuted by art, certainly there must have been mind at 
work in nature. How can you make it hold to- 
gether that when you look upon a statue or a paint- 
ing you acknowledge that art has been employed, or 
seeing a ship doubt not that it is steered and guided 



62 RIGHT LIFE. 



by reason, or contemplating a sun-dial are convinced 
that the hours are pointed out by skill and not by 
chance, and at the same time are of opinion that the 
world, which comprehends those arts and artists and 
all things, has come without reason or design ?" 

Who will answer the illustrious orator's argu- 
ment? 

If we come upon a well-written book, full of the 
evidences of thought and intelligence, we immedi- 
ately conclude that it has come from some able and 
knowing author. If we should come upon some 
grand mansion in the wilderness, we would be per- 
fectly confident that some thinking and planning 
intelligence was once at work to produce it. If you 
saw the corn growing in rows upon the field, you 
would conclude that some hand of man had arranged 
it so. You would find no place whatever for doubt 
in any such a case. You would try in vain to con- 
vince yourself or any other reasonable being that it 
had come by chance, apart from any design or in- 
telligent agency. But what is the intelligence em- 
bodied in any book or work of man compared with 
that which appears in the various aspects of the 
grand economy of universal nature? Why, then, 
conclude that there was a designing mind at work 
in the one case and not in the other? If we cannot 
attribute a watch, a book, a house, a stcam-cnGfine, 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 63 

a printing-press, or the regularity of rows in a corn- 
field to chance or the blind operation of fortuitous 
forces, how can we account for the ten-thousand-fold 
more complicated structure and machinery of Nature 
without admitting the existence of an eternal and 
almighty Intelligence, who designed and fashioned 
it, set it in motion, and keeps it working in all this 
transcendent harmony and order ? 

Contemplate the sun in the heavens and the 
mighty round of planets of which it is the centre 
and the light. Consider the complexity of worlds 
and satellites in our solar system, with their double 
and triple motions, revolving harmoniously in their 
orbits of millions on millions of miles without vary- 
ing a minute in a thousand years. Behold the 
myriads of bright stars which glorify the night, 
each a sun and centre greater perhaps than our 
great orb of day, and having an equally vast and 
complex system which it govern*. See the heavenly 
harmony with which they all keep their orbits, ful- 
filling their beneficent offices one toward another, 
shining in their beauty, rolling in their spheres, 
never failing in their appointed times, never inter- 
fering with each other, never stumbling in their 
walk of ages through their heavenly courses, and 
unerringly filling their places in the great clock of 
the universe, wound up to run on without a jar for 



64 RIGHT LIFE. 



ever. Could all this have happened out of a mind- 
less chaos by mere chance ? * 

Contemplate our own world. Consider the fifty 
miles' depth of atmospheric ocean by which it is 
encircled, serving as a distributing medium for the 
hot rays of the burning sunlight, supporting animal 
life with one and vegetable life with the other of the 
two self-adjusting properties of which it is composed, 
forming a chariot for the rains, making a way for the 
lightning of the thunder, tempering the climates by 
its currents, and mantling the whole earth with a 
thousand beauties and beneficent services. Observe 
the system of divisions into waters and dry lands, 
rivers and springs, zones and continents, hills and 
dales, rocks and sands, metals and moulds, seedtime 
and harvest, summer and winter, light and darkness, 
dew and hoarfrost. Behold this deep wide sea, in 
which are things innumerable, warming in the tropics 
to bear salubrity to the colder shores and food to its 
inhabitants in their polar homes, and ever churning 
in its tides to give health and wholesome moisture 
to the world. Behold the lands in their multiform 
variations and adaptabilities for everything that can 
minister to the being and well-being of man. Could 

* " The science of the stars leads directly to the acknowlcilgniont 
of the most high God." — Sartor'ms. It is a psychological phenomenon 
how an astronomer can be an atheist. 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 65 

all this have merely happened so without a thinking 
mind and potent will to arrange and determine it ? 

Look at the vegetable kingdom with which the 
earth is covered and adorned. Survey it " from the 
cedars of Lebanon to the hyssop which springeth 
out of the wall." Behold the variety and multi- 
plicity of productions, ninety thousand of which 
have been counted and classified, with no two kinds 
alike, and each with its own specific forms and 
offices, properties and uses. Examine but a single 
blossom, and what a laboratory of chemical and 
vital processes is there, all accurately calculated for 
a specific end, and effectually securing that end. 
How complete each department in itself and in its 
relations, all adjusted for the special life, maturity, 
and perpetuation of the order to which it belongs ! 
How elegant, mathematical, and beautiful is the cut 
and carving of each petal and leaf and the placings 
of them on the stem which bears them ! How ex- 
quisite the tints, colorings, shadings, and perfumes ! 
How wonderful and well considered the arrange- 
ments for successful fructification, fruits, seeds, and 
plantings for after-progenies of the same kind ! 
What a storage of wisdom, contrivance, art, delicate 
skill, and subtle power beyond all capacity of man is 
thus contained in each of the myriad plants and 
grasses and trees and flowers which clothe and 



66 RIGHT LIFE. 



ornament our world ! How is it possible that all 
this should have come from blind chance, or con- 
tinue as it does without the existence and active 
interposition of an intelligent and all-pervading 
God? 

Look at man himself, to say nothing of the ten 
thousand other differing forms of earthly life. Take 
only the human hand, and you have there a system 
of easy-working and completely-adapted hinges, to 
speak of nothing else, such as no ingenuity of man, 
even with the model before him, has ever been able 
to imitate. Yet this is only a part of an equally 
wonderful bony framework overlaid with an almost 
endless variety of muscles and complicated investi- 
ture and covering, and the same inlaid with inter- 
lacing systems of sensation, circulation, respiration, 
digestion, motion, and self-repair, capacitating the 
whole to work together in one perfect organism 
that may run for a hundred years. And pervading 
this material body there is also a rational soul, with 
powers of thought, feeling, imagination, and will, 
imaging that mysterious and self-potent Spirit jvhich 
pervades and governs the universe.* 

* Materialists indeed deny the proper existence of mind, and 
consider thought a product of matter, a function of the material 
organism, and hold that what we call soul or thought is produced 
by the brain as bile is secreted by the liver. Their theories oblige 
them to construe consciousness itself as a product of material orgaiii- 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 6/ 

Think, then, of that wonderful, self-acting, invisi- 
ble spiritual machine which we call genius producing 

zation, and thus transform morality into mere dietetics and corporeal 
hygiene. 

" If thought is a secretion of the brain, produced from our nourish- 
ment by means of a kind of fermentation or filtration, or in some 
other way, we can breed youths at our pleasure to be warriors, phil- 
osophers, musicians, and the like, and the most important question 
for a teacher would be what sort of material food to give his pupils " 
(Chrisdieb). 

" Does Maudsley, Bain, or Carpenter, Buchner, Vogt, or Barker, 
assert or imply that mental manifestations are so far determined by 
cerebral conditions that we are prompted to regard thought a mere 
secretion of the brain — mind but a function of matter ? Then I rise 
in the name of the universal consciousness to denounce the absurdity. 
If it is only nervous matter which thinks, then all the testimony ot 
my being is perjury — Nature itself is a lie. ... To say that a man's 
mental manifestations are conditioned by the state of his brain, and 
this by the food which he consumes, is only to state- a truism which 
the world has never denied. But does this prove that mentality has 
no cause but the brain ? The movement of the locomotive is con- 
ditioned by the switch, but does this fact make the switch the cause 
of the locomotive's motion ? The investiture of matter with thinking 
and voluntary attributes would summon us to the funeral of God" — 
(Winchell). 

" Every several expression of our consciousness, every stirring of 
our feelings, every dawning resolution, proclaims aloud that processes 
not to be measured by the standard of physical notions do take place 
with unconquerable and undeniable reality. So long as we have 
this experience, materialism may prate in the schools, but its own 
professors will belie their creed by their living actions ; for they will 
all continue to love and hate, to hope and fear, to dream and study ; 
and they will in vain seek to persuade us that this varied exercise of 
mental energies, which their deliberate denial of the supersensuous 
cannot destroy, is a product of their bodily organization, or that the 
love of truth shown by some, the sensitive vanity betrayed by others, 
has its origin in their cerebral fibres. Among all the errors of the 



6S RIGHT LIFE, 



songs that range far and wide through real and im- 
aginary worlds and sing on amid the ages, origin- 
ating works of art which almost rival Nature itself, 
and causing dead matter to rise into obedient activity 
to do the work of thousands of hands the same as 
if endowed with living intelligence. Think of the 
properties, susceptibilities, capacities, and powers of 
the human mind, and what we may reasonably sup- 
pose to be its destiny. And with all these things 
before our eyes how can a sane man doubt that 
there must be some great creative and all-governing 
Intelligence from whom they have come ? * 

human mind, it has always seemed to me the strangest that it could 
come to doubt its own existence, of which alone it has direct experi- 
ence, or take it at second hand as the product of an external nature 
which we know only indirectly — only by means of the veiy mind to 
which men would fain deny existence." 

" The soul originates neither in body nor in nothing. It goes forth 
from the substance of the Infinite with no less fulness of reality than 
all actual Nature brought forth from the same Source. And neither 
do soul and body come together by chance, nor is it the work of the 
body by its organization to make to itself a soul corresponding to the 
possible form of its vital activity ; nor does the Infinite arbitrarily dis- 
tribute ready-fashioned minds to infant germs. But, as with free con- 
sistency it makes every bodily organism the necessary result of the 
parent organisms, so also in the creation of souls it follows a self- 
imposed law that weaves their succeeding generations into the grada- 
tions of an inherent affinity." — Lotze's Microcosvins, ii. pp. 262, 263, 

391. 

* " The proof of the existence of God derived from the existence 
of the world has been expressed by various formuliE ; e. g. the world, 
as the aggregate of things incidental, demands one supreme Essence, 
bearing within itself the cause of its own existence (Leibnitz); or 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 69 

We thus conclude that there is, as there neces- 
sarily must be, an eternal and infinite God. And if 
any are disposed to think the evidences inadequate 
to prove it, one thing is certain — namely, that no 
such evidences can be produced to prove there is 
no God. Nay, to assert the non-existence of God 
not only presents a monstrous proposition, but in- 

that which exists demands as its cause that which exists necessarily 
(Wolf). Again, vital motion requires an immovable One as the 
ultimate cause of motion, from whom proceeded that impulse which 
caused all the activity of life ; * for how should anything be moved if 
no moving force had previously existed ?' So argued Aristotle, and 
Newton when treating of the law of gravitation. Life actually ex- 
isting points backward to -an eternal life before itself. Organic life 
had a beginning upon earth, and hence requires One who produced 
this beginning. Once more : the duality of the world, as consisting 
of matter and spirit, demands a God. For, matter and spirit being 
essentially unlike, and each the opposite to and limitation of the 
other, each is consequently finite, and neither could have originated 
the other. Material nature cannot bring forth personal spirit, nor 
can the spirit of man produce material nature. It is folly to suppose 
consciousness to have originated from matter ; it is madness to sup- 
pose the material world to have been formed by the mind of man. 
In short, the existence of the world demands the existence of God." 
— Luthardt's Fundamental Truths, p. 47. 

" We are content with extorting a concession from the mechanical 
view of the universe, which, if it means to take up arms, it cannot 
withhold. For, referring all beauty, adaptation to ends, and ideal 
significance in Nature to a primitive situation, composition, and mo- 
tion of the elements, it thinks, by negation chiefly, to ward off the 
idea of a special, rationally creative origin of things ; and yet, in^ 
voluntarily, it thereby affirms the fact that the primal condition of 
the world was a rational order, and that all its own attempts at ex- 
planation but turn to account the consequences of this original 
reason." — Lotze's Microcosm., i. p. 408. 



70 RIGHT LIFE. 



eludes a preposterous assumption. As a distin- 
guished German divine has put it : " Before one can 
say that the world is without a God he must first 
have become thoroughly conversant with the whole 
cosmos. He must have searched through the uni- 
verse of suns and stars, as well as the history of all 
ages; he must have wandered through the whole 
realm of space and time in order to be able to assert 
with truth, * Nowhere has a trace of God been found.' 
He must be acquainted with every force in the entire 
universe, for should but one escape him, that very 
one might be God. He must be able to count up 
with certainty all the causes of existence, for were 
there one that he did not know, that one might be 
God. He must be in absolute possession of all the 
elements of truth which form the whole body of our 
knowledge, for else the one factor which he did not 
possess might be just the very truth that there is a 
God. If he does not know and cannot explain 
everything that has happened in the course of the 
ages, just the very point which he does not know 
and is unable to explain may involve the agency of 
God. In short, to be able to affirm authoritatively 
that no God exists, a man must be omniscient and 
omnipresent ; that is, he himself must be God ; and 
then, after all, there would be one ! You thus be- 
hold the monstrosity of the atheistic doctrine, and 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 7 1 

how impossible it is to prove there is no God. 
There must be as much and vaoYQ faith to accept the 
assertion that there is no God than to conclude that 
there is one. The atheist is obliged to depend in a 
larger degree on assumptions which cannot be 
proved than he who believes in the divine exist- 
ence." * 

Some are stumbled at the mystery of the subject. 
They cannot realize to their understanding how God 
can be self-existent and eternal, without beginning 
and without end, and so they are not satisfied that 
all this is true. But to deny it will not relieve the 
difficulty or solve the enigma of the origin of things. 
If there be no God, then matter must be self-exist- 
ent, self-supporting, and self-perpetuating, which is 
still harder to understand. We know that matter is 
not infinite. It belongs to its nature to be limited and 

* Christlieb's Modern Doubt, pp. 143, 144. 

As a specimen of the arguments by which atheistic philosophers 
think to prove the non-existence of God, the following is quoted by 
Christlieb from Feuerbach : " There is no God ; it is as clear as the 
sun and as evident as the day that there is no God, and, still more, 
that there can be none. For if there were a God, then there must 
be one; He would be necessary. But if there is no God, then there 
can be no God; therefore there is no God. There is no God because 
there cannot be any." 

People who can be convinced and satisfied with such logic must 
be superlatively desirous to embrace the assertion which it is meant 
to prove, but they must then not speak of believers in God as having 
vacated their common sense in favor of a creed. 



72 RIGHT LIFE. 



mutable. God is infinite and immutable Mind ; and 
we can more readily comprehend how there should 
be an eternal and all-controlling Intelligence than 
that there should be an eternally-existent and self- 
constituted universe of finite and mutable materials. 
We can see how material order and finite life could 
come from eternal Mind, but not from a mindless 
eternal chaos ; for, in reality, all forms of matter are 
the expressions and effects of mind. 

But what if the necessary implications of the 
divine existence do go beyond our power to realize 
them to our understanding? He who will not accept 
a fact until he can explain it, or refuses to believe it 
until he can fully comprehend it, only acts the fool. 
To be consistent with his position, he cannot accept 
anything, for all things are full of mystery which no 
man can solve. His own being, the world he in- 
habits, the nature he wears, the food he eats, the 
water he drinks, the air he breathes, the sleep by 
which he refreshes himself, the very thought which 
he opposes to a better logic, — each has mysteries 
which he cannot explain or fully comprehend. To 
be true to his principles he must become a universal 
skeptic : he can know nothing, admit nothing, and 
must let go all knowledge except what he thinks he 
has tested by his own senses, which are not infal- 
lible. On his own laws and rules of belief he must 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 73 

vacate his very existence, and sink for ever in a 
universal sea of unknowableness, with nothing to 
take hold of, nothing to rest on, no bottom to touch, 
himself the absurdest mystery of all. And so every 
possible ground on which the existence of God is 
denied necessarily plunges us into a pathless wilder- 
ness respecting everything else. 

Neither could God be God and not exceed our 
narrow comprehension. A God whom man's poor 
brain can compass would be no greater than our- 
selves, and hence no God at all. He who can grasp 
perfection is himself perfection's equal. Therefore 
we perpetrate a gross self-contradiction in refusing to 
believe in a God because we cannot understand all 
about Him. We cannot take the stars in our hands 
nor clasp the heavens in our two arms, and must 
ever stand amazed and confounded at the contem- 
plation of their unsearchable economies and glory ; 
are we therefore to deny that they exist ? Nay, as 
no one can fight away the world because unable to 
conceive how it was made, so we make ourselves 
the veriest fools by propounding it as a law of belief 
that nothing can exist which goes beyond the reach 
of our present understanding. 

A country farmer once came to Luther complain- 
ing that he could not understand the Creed about 
God Almighty. " Neither can I," said the great 



74 RIGHT LIFE. 



Reformer, " nor all the doctors." It is more than 
lies in human power, for the plain reason that the 
finite cannot grasp the Infinite. The truth is, that 
no man can cast a thought halfway to the sub- 
limities of God ; and hence it is a most irrational 
thing to conclude He is not, because our weak rea- 
son cannot scale the infinitudes of His being. 

Ah yes, dear friends, there is a God, an almighty 
Maker of heaven and earth. The devout heart not 
only believes it, but feels it. The soul unblunted 
and unwarped in its Godward susceptibilities has 
sensations of Him, and experiences the reality to 
which the better reason points. And the more we 
commune with God, even in this life, the more our 
faith is assured, until it becomes transfigured into a 
fulness of conviction which nothing can vanquish 
or obscure. 

And wouldst thou know, O man, that thou hast 
an eternal Maker, and what a sea of love and bene- 
diction pulsates in His great heart ? Humble, then, 
thy proud conceit and loud self-consequence. With- 
draw thee from the vain imaginings of man's boast- 
ful and bewildering philosophies. Realize thy in- 
significance and be ashamed of thy folly and pre- 
sumption in thinking to push Jehovah from His 
universe by thy puny reason. Bow thyself in ador- 
ing wonder before His august throne, and learn to 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, 75 

Speak his name in reverent worship of His awful 
majesty. Ask Him in humble earnest prayer to open 
thy soul and let in some beams of His glorious 
presence to heal thy heartaches and thy darkness. 
For once in thy life make honest test of that prom- 
ise : '' He that asketh, receiveth ; he that seeketh, 
findeth ; and to him that knocketh, it shall be 
opened." In the simplicity of childhood approach 
the great Father who gave thee being, and thou 
shalt know that He is, and that He is thy God, 
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant 
in goodness and truth. Nor will thy tossed and 
homesick soul ever find its rest until it rests upon 
the bosom of the eternal God. 



LECTURE THIRD. 

Belief in ffiotr. 

Heb. 11:6: He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and 
that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. 

IT does not seem to be difficult to bring men to 
the acknowledgment of some sort of supreme 
Power in or over Nature. The evidences on this 
point are so clear and cogent that belief in some kind 
of deity is common to universal man wherever in 
condition to be called man. Plutarch says : " You 
may see states without walls, without laws, without 
coins, without writing ; but a people without a God 
has no man seen." Even a high priest of the evo- 
lution theory, in giving his latest views, says that 
amid the vast and complex mysteries of Nature 
there remains to the man of science " one absolute 
certainty, that he is in the presence of an infinite and 
eternal Energy from which all things proceed." * 

* *' Mr. Herbert Spencer has told me in private conversation that 
he regards the existence of this infinite and eternal Energy that re- 
ligion calls God as the one most certain object of all our knowledge." 
— Evolution and Religion, by M. J. Savage, p. 43. 

In Mr. Spencer's First Principles (p. 190) he says : " Both religion 
and science are obliged to assert the existence of an ultimate Reality. 

77 



78 RIGHT LIFE. 



And from the materialistic philosophers in general 
we hear a great deal about this " infinite Energy," 
" Force," " Substance," " unconscious Power," " the 
Unknown," which, though not synonyms of God, 
and meant rather to supersede God, are the uncon- 
scious tributes of unbelief to the inalienable primary 
convictions of the human soul that there is, and 
must be, what is only rightly expressed by the word 
God. Apart from God these phrases denote mere 
abstractions and idealisms representing no reality ; 
and the new coinage is simply a deception palmed 
upon the understanding to ungod God, and to put 
into His place and clothe with His attributes sheer 
conceits of the imagination. But the very sugges- 
tion of these phrases is an acknowledgment of the 
inevitable demonstration of science that there is and 
must be an eternal God. 

Whilst, therefore, the confessions to which these 
people are driven concede much that is realized only 
in what we call God, their conceptions fall very far 
short of such a God as right faith and the real wants 
of the soul demand. We cannot worship, love, and 

. . . We cannot construct a theory of internal phenomena without 
postulating Absolute Being, and unless we postulate Absolute Being, 
or Being which persists, we cannot construct a theory of external 
phenomena." Proctor says: " The teachings of science bring us into 
the presence of the unquestionable infinities of time and space and 
the presumable infinities of matter and of operation ; hence, therefore, 
into the presence of infinite energy." — Our Place, p. 2. 



BELIEF IN GOD. 79 

adore blind Chailce or mere inexorable Force ; for, 
if our being and surroundings have arisen out of 
mere accident or contingency, and must so evanish 
again, there is no room or occasion for anything but 
to live in recklessness and die in despair. We can- 
not worship, love, and adore an eternal Fate of any 
description ; for if we are compelled to the conclu- 
sion that a grim and relentless necessity makes our 
miseries, foredooms our anxieties and disappoint- 
ments, and only mocks at our wailings, cries, and 
tears, we are in the condition of hopelessly impris- 
oned brutes whose only relief is in dashing out their 
being against their prison-wails. The Athenians 
could erect an altar to " the Unknown God," but so 
long as He remained unknown it was a mere blind 
will-worship which they rendered to Him, having 
less substance of faith to affect the heart and life 
than the common idolatries. We must know what 
we worship, that it is an object worthy of our adora- 
tion, affection, and trust, and that it is something 
differing from ignorant Chance, iron Fate, or an un- 
knowable eternal Energy. And if our belief in a 
God is to fulfil for us the offices and functions of 
religion and meet the necessities of our religious 
nature, we need to inquire into what God is, and 
what is really embraced when we say we believe in 
God. 



80 RIGHT LIFE, 



The word " God " is a very great, but also a very- 
elastic, word. It conveys a simple idea which a very 
narrow and feeble mind can take in ; but at the 
same time it carries a conception so vast that the 
greatest intellect cannot exhaust it or reach its 
boundaries. God to the understanding of a child, 
and God to the mature intellect of a deep-thinking 
believer, are doubtless very different things so far as 
respects the apprehensions they have ; but the idea 
is not therefore unreal in either. The term stands 
for the best and highest Being of which we can con- 
ceive, the conception ever rising and expanding with 
thought of the exalted, the true, and the good. As 
the material universe has widened to the telescope, 
so the idea of God enlarges and clears as the capa- 
city to understand grows and increases ; but the idea 
itself, the idea of the ever-living Supreme, is the 
same in the least and in the greatest. 

God is the proper name in our language for a per- 
sonal Being with a conscious, free, and all-potent 
will — a living and independent existence which we 
can call"<??/r Father''' — an inscrutable personalized 
Intelligence, Power, and Goodness, infinite in attri- 
butes, which caused all things, governs all things, 
and without which nothing was or is or can be. 

From the standpoint of speculative reason such a 
thing as an impersonal God may be th'canicd o{, but 



BELIEF IN GOD. 8 1 

it is only a dream. From the deeper standpoint of 
religious consciousness an impersonal God is a noth- 
ing. There can be no Ego, no self-consciousness, no 
freedom, no intelligent action, where there is no 
personality. An impersonal God no one can " come 
to," neither can He reward those who seek Him. 
An impersonal God is incapable of any will or 
choice to govern in righteousness or to help the 
desponding in their ills. An impersonal God means 
a necessitated creation ruled by inexorable fate. 
An impersonal God is a contradiction to the very 
conception of God, for a mere thing cannot rank 
with a conscious personality or possess the high- 
est and most perfect attributes of existence. An 
impersonal God is incapable of happiness, and can 
neither feel itself nor have sympathy for any other. 
An impersonal God is an unconscious God, for 
where there is consciousness there is personality, 
and an unconscious God is a dead God, a thing un- 
blessed and unable to bless. 

The very idea of God thus implies a living, per- 
sonal, conscious, and all-potent Being, understanding 
Himself, and capable of choosing and determining 
according to His own sovereign will and pleasure. 

But a personal God must have moral character. 
Where there is self-consciousness, choice, and free 
action there must be ethical quality — something an- 



82 RIGHT LIFE, 



swering to the word good or bad. If the idea of 
God imphes the highest perfection, it must take in 
the highest moral perfection also. If God is the 
conscious Sovereign and Source from whom all 
things proceed, there must be some complete moral 
standard in His own nature and being according to 
which they proceed ; and that standard must be of 
the supremest moral excellence. A supreme God 
must be supremely good, loving and prospering 
order and goodness, and hating whatever is against 
order and goodness. He may — and as the Creator 
of a moral universe He must — permit the incoming 
of evil from the activities of free will on the part of 
moral creatures. There can be no moral universe 
without this. A moral creature is one with power 
of will and choice to do good or evil ; and as moral 
being is the highest sort of being, it was good in 
God to create moral beings, even with the possibility 
necessarily going with it that there might come into 
it from the creature will what He abhors, hates, and 
uses all His energies and resources to hinder and 
overcome. An impersonal order of inevitable law 
is incapable of initiating any dealing with such a 
contingency, and the highest form of beneficent 
goodness would be impossible. God is the supreme 
good; therefore His sovereign will is one of blended 
love and righteousness, which not only fulfils right, 



' BELIEF IN GOD. 83 

but works for the cure of creature wrong — which 
not only proceeds in the one fixed order of right- 
eousness, merely breaking what stands in its way, 
but also hath compassion on them that are out of 
the way, worketh for the good and healing of the 
erring, and besetteth men before and behind, teach- 
ing them His truth, filling them with His Spirit, 
helping them in their infirmities, and plentifully re- 
warding them that diligently seek Him. 

As surely, then, as there is a God at all, this is 
what He is and what He must be to fulfil what all 
consistent thought, as well as revelation, makes ne- 
cessary to the conception of a supreme and eternal 
God. We cannot believe in Him or know Him un- 
less we realize in Him the ever-living Source of 
good, the Spring of being, intelligently active at all 
moments in all lives — as infinite in condescension as 
in exaltation, as full of love as of righteousness, as 
gracious as He is true, as gentle and kind as He is 
mighty, as faithful as He is just, and as merciful as 
He is inexorable, determining His ends from His 
character and justifying all His ways by His ends. 

And to this God it is meant that we should come 
— come by diligent seeking — come in our learning 
and understanding of Him — come in trustful and 
adoring affections — come in the adjustment of our 
lives to His well-pleasing. In the ordinary course 



84 RIGHT LIFE. 



of things, as all history shows, we are far from Him, 
lacking in acquaintance with Him, alienated in heart, 
and needing to find Him as our supreme good, al- 
though He is not far from every one of us. We 
come into the world with a nature fashioned to find 
its proper happiness in conscious fellowship with 
Him, and which cannot restrain itself from feeling 
after Him, but enveloped in mist and darkness, mis- 
led by erring passions, and never at rest till we get 
back to familiar knowledge of our eternal Father, 
to walk with Him like Enoch, and be on terms of 
close friendship with Him like Abraham. 

But for all this a living faith in Him is indispen- 
sable. We can never find God or find our proper 
blessedness in Him without believing that He is, and 
that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek 
Him. And of this necessity it was my purpose 
more especially to speak at this time. 

This, then, is the point I make : that Faith in the 
existence and government of a personal and eternal 
God is indispensable to a right aiid happy human life. 

In every kind of existence, in every system of 
things, there are certain elements essential to its just 
order and true well-being, and without which it can 
exist only in a maimed, damaged, and crippled con- 
dition, if it can exist at all. And in this respect 
humanity is at an inmicnse disadvantage without a 



BELIEF IN GOD. 85 

living religious faith, of which the fear and love of 
God is the centre and circumference. 

To illustrate this point, let it be admitted and be- 
lieved, on the one hand, that there is a God ; that 
this God is our Father ; that He has a paternal in- 
terest in our welfare ; that He has provided the ways 
and means of our salvation from sin and ruin ; that 
He hears our prayers and will help our virtuous and 
honest endeavors ; that He holds all things in His 
almighty power to order them for the advantage of 
those who trust in Him ; and that He is pledged by 
covenant to bring the believing, dutiful, and true to 
the beatitudes of life eternal after this brief pilgrim- 
age is over. And if such a belief be real to the soul, 
it is quite evident how we can live calmly, endure 
patiently, labor resolutely, deny ourselves cheerfully, 
hope steadfastly, and come off conquerors in the 
great struggles and trials of earthly life ; yea, more 
than conquerors through Him who loves us and 
holds us in the embrace of His everlasting arms. 
But, on the other hand, let all such ideas and con- 
solations be blotted out. Let it be admitted and 
settled that there is no God ; no propitious Heaven 
to care for us ; no overruling Providence to have 
us in its fatherly keeping ; no way opened for avail- 
ing prayer, for pardon, for help in distress, for suc- 
cess against the invasions of evil ; no promised 



86 RIGHT LIFE. 



heaven to look to ; no rest for the weary ; no blessed 
homeland for the pilgrim and sojourner; and where 
are we? and what are we? What, indeed, but the 
sport of ungovernable forces and the victims of de- 
spair ? What are we but hapless wanderers upon 
the face of the desolate and forsaken earth, sur- 
rounded by darkness, struggling with obstacles we 
cannot master, distracted with doubts and uncertain- 
ties, misled by false lights — not only wanderers who 
have lost their way, but wanderers, alas ! who have 
no way, no prospect, no home ? What are we but 
doomed, deserted voyagers upon the dark and 
stormy sea, thrown amidst the baffling waves, with- 
out a compass, without a course, with no blessed ha- 
ven in the distance to invite us to its welcome rest ? * 

Dwell on these two pictures, dear friends, and it 
seems to me you will plainly see that it makes an 
immense and terrible difference in the estate of man, 
even in this brief life, whether he devoutly and 
truly believes in God or not, and that atheism is, 
and necessarily must be, an enemy to man's true 
peace and blessedness. 

As the body needs food and air, so the soul needs 
faith in God. As without the one the body dies, so 
without the other the soul must pine and languish. 
Deprive man of all belief in a sovereign, just, and 

* Sec a sermon by Oiville Uewey. 



BELIEF IN GOD. 8/ 

gracious Father everywhere about his path, destroy 
his confidence in virtue and essential rectitude, for 
which he can have no certain standard but in God, 
and he sinks that moment into chilly darkness, and 
his inner life is like that of a plant in a closed cave, 
sickly, weak, and with no satisfaction in its existence. 

All nature needs a bond to hold it to its cen- 
tre. Destroy the principle of gravitation, and all 
the worlds would rush to a common ruin. So the 
great bond which holds men to their spheres and 
binds society together is faith in God and what 
that includes. Destroy it and the horrors of the 
French Revolution may serve to indicate the con- 
sequences. 

What law or wisdom, indeed, is to govern and 
protect man when all idea of God and accountability 
to a supreme Power is taken away? Animals are 
governed by instinct of nature, which is to them law 
and wisdom which they cannot otherwise than obey. 
But for this their being would be disabled and soon 
destroyed. Man has animal appetites, propensities, 
and passions too, but he lacks the potent animal in- 
stincts to control them and keep them from driving 
him to destruction. What, then, is to serve as his law 
and wisdom to keep him in the line of safety and well- 
being? Rational prudence ought to do it, but rational 
prudence is nothing in the case of the great mass 



88 RIGHT LIFE. 



of mankind to restrain them from the vices and 
passions which are annually carrying their myriads 
to untimely graves and filling the world with 
wretchedness. In the sphere of citizenship the 
common law is something of a restraint ; but every 
county and State has its jails and prisons full of 
people who trample all law beneath their feet ; and 
there be myriads more as bad as they who are walk- 
ing at liberty to the damage of social comfort, 
security, and peace, betraying the innocent and 
unsuspecting, ruining homes, preying on the good, 
and everywhere embittering life. But for those who 
fear God, respect virtue, honor conscience, and love 
righteousness, there is not a state that could protect 
itself or its citizens against rampant passions and 
infernal greed, except by an armed tyranny that 
would soon work its own destruction. Self-love 
may help to restrain some, but self-love without the 
fear of God runs into supreme selfishness, which is 
itself a principle of disorder, of disregard of others' 
rights, of unhappiness and ruin. Desire for ease, 
comfort, and well-being may operate favorabh' upon 
a few, but the pursuit of happiness is most prone to 
take the form of licentiousness, sensuality, and greed, 
particularly when all hope is shut in to this present 
life, with no heaven in the future to be striven for. 
What, then, is to become of man but to bo made the 



BELIEF IN GOD. 89 

sport of the veering impulses and lusts of carnal 
nature, with his mind enslaved to the flesh, without 
so much as the kind guardianship of brute instinct 
to protect him while beset with the additional perils 
arising from the cravings and desperations of his 
starved, wronged, and dishonored soul? 

I am not arguing now from the Bible, from the 
Creed, or from any dogma. I am arguing from the 
nature of things. I am arguing from what inheres 
in the very constitution of what is. And I say to 
you, in the language of Orville Dewey, " A man 
cannot suffer and be patient, he cannot struggle and 
conquer, he cannot improve and be happy, without 
conscience, without hope, without God in the world. 
Necessity is laid upon us to embrace the great truths 
of religion, and to live by them, to live happily. ... As 
a matter of simple fact, * he that believeth not shall be 
damned ;' that is, shall suffer the unavoidable misery 
which must spring from boundless wants unsatisfied 
— boundless wants which nothing but boundless 
objects, the objects of faith, can satisfy." 

But there are other ways of illustrating the in- 
dispensable necessity of faith in God to human 
well-being. 

There can be no skepticism about the fact that we 
are here, living beings, alive to happiness, alive to 
misery — here in vicissitude, in uncertainty, in all the 



go RIGHT LIFE. 



accidents of a mingled lot, in conditions and relations 
that touch all the secret springs of the soul, amidst a 
frail life that a little while ago was not, and in a little 
while must disappear, — here where this conscious 
present is all we have, all that sense can discover, 
all that reason can disclose. Trembling between 
the two infinities of space and time, mind can see 
and feel the lonely sadness of this little life, and 
realize its own minute personality from the bound- 
lessness about it. Dizzy, reeling, and ready to sink 
to nothingness in the presence of the immensities 
above, around, and beneath it, the cry comes for 
some helping hand that can reach through these 
abysses and give assurance of friendly sympathy. 
// is the cry for God. But if there be no God ? 
Alas, alas, if there be no God ! What, then, are these 
lives of ours but gleams of conscious wretchedness 
thrown across the face of immeasurable darkness ? 
And what are these infinitudes but boundless Saharas, 
silent voids, and awful mockeries of our poor being? 
But when there comes to view a potent, eternal, and 
all-pervading God, to call us His children, to throw 
around us His everlasting arms, to smile in upon 
our lone and agonized souls, and to take our hands 
in His own great Father hand to lead us out into 
the happy realms of immortal peace, — all these im- 
mensities grow warm and vital and throbbing with 



BELIEF IN GOD. 9 1 

welcome, even to our little being, like great hearts 
pulsating with tides of emotion and music and 
eternal praise, in which we are participant and being 
wafted on from glory to glory. Then the infinities 
of space are filled with something more than inac- 
cessible star-dots — filled in, over, and around the stars, 
and over and around the world, and over and around 
each individual man, and graciously touching us 
for good every day and hour and minute, even with 
a cheering, living, loving, and eternal Presence, to 
lean on which is to taste the sweet fellowship of a 
divine blessedness. Then, also, the eternities behind 
and before us are no longer empty voids or endless 
processions of births and deaths, aimless and mean- 
ingless, but very gardens of God for immortal 
growths, flowers, and fruitage, to flourish as living 
and loving offsprings of the living and loving Hus- 
bandman of the universe, from whom we came, to 
whom we return, and in whose eternal care all 
things are secure, restful, and blessed. Having 
Him with us and in us and around us as our 
gracious Protector and Saviour, and no beyond 
in time or space where He is not, all distressing 
doubt and anxiety is soothed away in the assurance 
of His almighty beneficence, and, whether we live 
or die, " the eternal God is our refuge, and under- 
neath us are the everlasting arms." 



92 RIGHT LIFE. 



There is also a condition of spiritual life or death 
determined by the having or not having of a living 
faith in God. The encircling, pervasive, and ever- 
active presence of Him in whose bosom we lie is to 
the soul what Nature is to animal and vegetable life. 
The animal or plant lives by taking up the elements 
which Nature presents and assimilating them to its 
nutriment and support ; and so man spiritually lives 
by taking into his soul the truths of God and ab- 
sorbing them into his being. A dead plant or ani- 
mal is a thing simply out of connection with the 
economy intended for the support of its life. Hav- 
ing ceased to take and assimilate the nutriment pro- 
vided by the play of Nature's forces, and failing to 
drink any more of the vital streams that continue to 
flow for the benefit of every living thing, it died and 
is dead. So a soul out of sympathetic relation to 
the eternal God, or failing to take in the life-truths 
in God which ever play around every one, is out of 
connection with what otherwise would keep it spirit- 
ually alive. It is dead — not because of inadequacy 
in the divine influences that vitalize, but only and 
always because it has not received them and does 
not take them in. Not believing in God or without 
feeding on the soul-quickening truth, there is spir- 
itual death. Nor can any man live in the higher 
spiritual elements of His being without intimate and 



BELIEF IN GOD. 93 

loving recognition of the divine existence, and the 
keeping up of a permanent consciousness of the 
eternal God and Father's presence as the atmo- 
sphere in which the soul lives and breathes and has 
its life. 

" God is the whole life of our soul. All the 
powers of the mind do not find their aim till they 
find God. In Him the heart finds its happiness, the 
reason its truth, the will its true freedom. The heart 
is ever disquieted in the world ; it cannot find its 
rest in things transitory ; it can only find repose in a 
great heart — in God. Our thoughts ascend from the 
particular to the general, to the absolute, to the 
highest reason, to the highest truth. This highest 
object of which we can think — which in thinking of 
we seek — must be analogous to the thinking mind ; 
not a thing, not an abstraction, but itself a thinking 
mind, an absolute Ego — God. * Give me a great 
thought,' says Herder, ' that I may live on it' The 
greatest thought, and that on which we may truly 
live, is God. The will strives after freedom, after 
moral freedom. It seeks in it moral perfection, in 
the realization of the moral law ; and it does not 
find its freedom, and therefore its truth, till it finds 
it in union of the finite with the supreme Will — with 
God. In short, man strives after the infinite, but the 
infinite has reality in God alone. Man is for God, 



94 RIGHT LIFE. 



and aims for Him. Communion with God is the 
truth of man — his true life; and without this he 
cannot be truly man nor really live." * 

And especially with reference to a future state of 
existence, which takes its character from the start 
and plantings made on earth, does belief in God and 
His good and gracious government become indis- 
pensable to our peace and well-being. If it were 
man's destiny to die as a dog, to have his whole 
being extinguished like the flame of a candle, it 
would not matter so much. We might manage to 
weather through the dreary day of life, and then 
there would be nothing more of us — no further wants 
to be met, no more pain to feel, no remaining ques- 
tions of well-being to be solved. But what if we 
have been created to live on for ever in a harvest of 
consequences of which this life is the seeding ? 

That death should be to us an everlasting farewell, 
not only to the friends and scenes with which we 
have been most conversant, but to every light and 
joy and hope and capacity and possibility of any 
sort of existence, is a thing from which our whole 
being recoils with horror. Instinctive feeling, the 
best conclusions of human reason, the outlooks and 
longings of awakened natural consciousness, the 
common beliefs of the best portions of mankind, as 

■'^ See Lulhardt's Fuudavictital Truths, p. 132. 



BELIEF IN GOD. 95 

well as the clearer teachings of revelation, — all tell 
of a continuity of being beyond the deathbed and 
the grave where every one shall reap as here he 
sows. All this assumes the being and government 
of God, and without belief in His eternal power and 
paternal goodness no darkness can be darker, no 
move of being more encumbered with horrible 
doubts to break down the calm and courage of the 
soul, than the step from this world into the awful 
unknown of the eternity before us. Only as our 
hearts are persuaded that the good God lives ; that 
He is a loving and gracious Father to all who put 
their trust in Him ; that nothing beyond death is 
beyond God ; that He is there as well as here ; that 
there is not a moment or place or fact touching our 
history or condition from which His sublime al- 
mightiness is absent or His merciful goodness want- 
ing ; that in Him is everlasting sufficiency for us in 
whatever may happen, — can we bid a composed 
adieu to all that pains or pleases in this world, and 
make the great migration with confidence and hope. 
But why should T dwell longer on this point? 
Have I not made it plain and evident from the facts 
of Nature and the principles of our being that a man 
must believe that God is, and that He is a rewarder 
of them that diligently seek Him, if ever he would 
be a right man and have the proper peace and bless- 



96 RIGHT LIFE. 



edness of his existence ? Can any one begin to 
show that what I have said is not immutable truth 
fairly deduced from the very nature of things ? 
Why, then, should there be any further doubt or 
question on the subject ? 

And yet, dear friends, let us not deceive ourselves. 
We may hold there is a God without having it avail 
to our profit. It is easy enough to say, " I believe 
in God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and 
earth," and to consider it settled that this is the only 
creed to meet the necessities of man, and yet not 
come fully under its power or have our hearts and 
lives fashioned to it. There be many who are well 
enough assured respecting all that belongs to the ex- 
istence of God and the necessity of believing in Him 
who are yet as much "without God and without 
hope in the world " as if they had never heard of 
Him. All their conceptions of the universe pre- 
suppose an eternal and infinite God, 

" Who gives its lustre to the insect's wing, 
And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds." 

They cannot look upon what is, without consent that 
it must have come from an unsearchable, intelligent, 
and almighty First Cause. They cannot look upon 
man or the world as an orphan thing, parentless, 
kingless, and without a fore-calculated destiny. 



BELIEF IN GOD. 97 

They cannot conceive of creaturehood without a 
basis or centre of omnific Life — of order and beauty 
without an Originator — of truth, goodness, love, and 
intelligence without a living Source out of whose 
deep bosom they have come. To them a kingdom 
presupposes a King, a mechanism argues a Designer, 
and creation implies a Creator. They cannot trace 
what is on the earth or in the sky without recogniz- 
ing the footprints and presence of a Being infinitely 
greater and more glorious than all the universe be- 
sides. They are ready to confess to the existence 
of some " eternal Power and Godhead," whose all- 
governing administration extends from 

" The living throne, the sapphire blaze, 
Where angels tremble as they gaze," 

even to the minutest forms of matter and of life. 

But what if they have all the while been failing to 
take it into their souls or to act and condition them- 
selves to it as an immutable reality ? If there be 
such a God as they admit, then are we for ever 
bound to fear, love, worship, and seek unto Him 
above all things. An all-governing Presence, from 
whom we have life and breath and all else, demands 
a wakeful and earnest circumspection in all we do 
and say. His infinite majesty challenges our con- 
stant and most humble reverence and anxiety to 



RIGHT LIFE. 



keep on terms with Him. His unfathomable good- 
ness and loving care claim our devoutest and un- 
ceasing thankfulness and most devoted affection. 
And how unmanly, stupid, and inexcusable for those 
who know God not to glorify Him as God ! 

Why, even the little birds, with neither mind nor 
spirit, and nothing to guide them but a feeble and 
narrow instinct, seek the tops which come nearest to 
heaven, and there sit and sing, hour by hour, to the 
praise of Him whose glory they know not, but 
whose goodness and guardian care they feel. The 
meanest shrubs and weeds of the earth stretch up as 
high as they can reach, and then spread open their 
choicest bloom and pour from their thousand cen- 
sers the incense of their most precious fragrance to 
Him who sends them the sunshine and the showers, 
as if struggling with all their inmost life to give 
becoming homage to their infinite Creator. The 
world's heart throbs with earthquake emotion to pile 
up hills and mountains, lifting their heads and hands 
in silent majesty to proclaim in solemn power the 
adorable greatness of Him who made the earth and 
the sea and the fountains of waters. The dull and 
unfeeling ground we tread on annually breaks out 
all over with swelling bulbs and shoots and leaves 
and flowers, in whose upspringing beauties and God- 
ward utterances we may read the praises of ahuiglily 



BELIEF IN GOD. 99 

Goodness. And for rational man, made in his 
Maker's image, endowed with mind and soul to 
know and choose, allied to angelic excellence and 
celestial orders, the recipient of Heaven's most ex- 
ceptional favors and the lordly head of all sublunary 
creatures, — for man, with powers to soar and climb 
to Jehovah's everlasting seat and live on in God and 
His blessing as long as the Eternal lives, — for man 
to know that he has such a great and good Father 
in heaven, on whom his being and all his blessings 
hang, and yet carry in him a soul that never moves 
in loving and adoring effort to glorify and please the 
sublime Parent of his existence, nor fears the eternal 
Arbiter of his destiny, — presents a picture of inex- 
pressible unsatisfactoriness, stupidity, and guilt. 

But, whether it be from a dead faith or a positive 
unbelief, the soul that fails to seek fellowship with 
God must needs live a mutilated and disabled life, 
miss the proper goal of its being, and inherit an 
ever-greatening wretchedness. 

♦* Then launch through being's wide extent ; 
Let the fair scale with just ascent 

And cautious step be trod, 
And from the dead corporeal mass. 
Through each progressive order, pass 

To instinct, reason, God." 



LECTURE FOURTH. 

Matt. 4:10: For it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy 
God, and Him only shalt thou serve. 

RIGHT LIFE must be a religious life. If there 
be an infinite and eternal God, from whom all 
things proceed, then He is entitled to our considera- 
tion, and life to be right must be adjusted to Him. 
But the setting and keeping of ourselves right with 
God is religion. And this I propose to make the 
subject of the present lecture. 

According to Cicero's derivation of the word, 
religion is the serious and practical consideration 
of what relates to God and his service. According 
to another etymology, it is the bond which holds 
us under obligation to some divine Power to which 
we stand related. But in either case the subject- 
matter denoted is essentially the same. 

Religion may be hard to define. It relates so 

much to the attitude of the soul and the motions of 

spiritual consciousness that it is difficult to tell just 

what it is. Perhaps we may come near a compre- 

101 



102 RIGHT LIFE. 



hensive description of it to say that it is the exer- 
cise of a certain potential function or energy of 
self-consciousness by which man apprehends the 
Infinite, groans to conceive and realize it, and longs 
and loves to be in communion and fellowship with 
it. It respects all our faculties in search for the 
true ideal in which the full harmony of things 
resides and the supreme good is realized. It is not 
a mental or moral philosophy merely, for a man may 
be an able metaphysician and still be profane, or an 
austere moralist and still be far from being religious. 
It is not a thing of mere aesthetic feeling or emotion, 
for the artist may make his canvas glow and breathe 
with pictures of divinest beauty, or the mystic work 
himself into many an ecstasy, without at all entering 
into the true spirit of religion. Nor is it a mere 
devotion. It is most of all a life^ a spirit, an attun- 
ing of soul to the divine, a spiritual sigh after God, 
an opening of the being toward the heavenly, a liv- 
ing to God, for God, with God, and in God. Hence 
it has been called " a general pervading tendency of 
the soul, which, while it appropriates the divine 
elements contained in speculative and practical 
reason and in feeling, makes them all converge 
to one end, life in God'' — " a form of thought, feel- 
ing, and action which has the divine for its object, 
basis, and end." 



RELIGION. 103 



Many make light of religion, and have a strong 
aversion to it and the mere mention of it. With 
some it is only another name for hypocritical pre- 
tension, self-deception, fanaticism, superstition, or 
a hateful interference with the proper freedom and 
enjoyment of life. And some who regard it with 
respect still contemplate it as a sort of by-thing to 
itself, which a man may take with him as a com- 
panion in the journey of life or lay aside and leave 
behind as his liking or particular genius may be. 
But all this rests upon a misapprehension, of which 
people's minds need to be disabused. 

It is sadly true that humanity has turned out many 
religious zealots, fanatics, quacks, clowns, mounte- 
banks, and pretenders, leading captive " silly women " 
(of both sexes), and stocking the world with all sorts 
of religionists who have more emotion than sense, 
more unruly conceit than fear of God, and very 
much more zeal and enthusiasm than knowledge and 
real piety. Taking these as the representatives of 
religion, it is not to be wondered that some sensible 
and sober-minded people should be disgusted with 
it. But when we consider the very exalted place 
which the best of men have always assigned to re- 
ligion, I cannot see how we can avoid being im- 
pressed with some sort of reverent respect for it. 

I doubt if there is anything, next after the universal 



104 RIGHT LIFE. 



struggle for subsistence, which has been so promi- 
nent and commanding in the world's history, or in 
the thoughts, feelings, and activities of our race, as 
this matter of religion. Wherever peoples have ex- 
isted, so far as we have any knowledge, whatever their 
condition in other respects, they have always shown 
a powerful instinct and affinity for religion, never 
ceasing to inquire wherewith they should come be- 
fore the Lord and how to order themselves to His 
well-pleasing. The whole history of ancient civiliza- 
tion is essentially a history of religion. The first 
elements of society we know of were intensely re- 
ligious. The cementing bond and the whole admin- 
istration actually consisted of religion. Education, 
jurisprudence, and all instruction was under the 
guardianship of religion and was fostered in its in- 
terests. Astronomy, history, and all the sciences, as 
well as all matters of theology, worship, and the 
order of social life, pertained to the priests and 
religious dignitaries. The arts had their rise and 
growth in connection with, and mostly in the ser\qce 
of, religion. Music was first used in the service of 
the gods, and poetry in their praise, and only after- 
ward in the honor of heroes. Even the drama was 
originally a kind of mingled worship and instruction. 
And a sadly-dcnudcd world this would be if every- 
thing in it that has grown from or pertains to relig- 



RELIGION. 105 



ion were blotted out. Half or more of the most 
precious treasures of the earth would be gone. All 
the most sacred books, the profoundest theologies, 
the noblest philosophies, the sublimest poetry, elo- 
quence, and song, the grandest architecture and 
plastic art, the most authentic records of the race, 
and the worthiest and most commanding traditions, 
customs, laws, and civilizations that exist, would be 
swept away. Surely, what has so enlisted, con- 
trolled, fashioned, enriched, and blessed the whole 
world of humanity from the beginning till now, and 
is so profoundly inrooted with all that is deemed 
valuable on earth, cannot reasonably be dismissed 
with a shrug or a sneer. And when we think of the 
mighty civilizations of antiquity whose power still 
pulsates through the nations — the civilizations of 
Chaldea, Egypt, Palestine, Persia, Greece, and Rome 
— and consider how everything that made them 
great was dependent on their religious sentiments 
and beliefs, to say nothing of the noblest exhibitions 
of modern manhood, we do but stultify ourselves by 
assigning religion to a sphere of indifference or con- 
tempt. 

There be some who admit the historic facts, but 
look upon it all with a sort of sneering pity, as a 
foolish exuberance of man's early childhood and 
adolescence or a semi-madness incident to ignorance. 



I06 RIGHT LIFE. 



Lifted to positions of comfort, intelligence, and re- 
spectability by means of what religious faith, culture, 
and institutions have wrought, they would fain kick 
down the ladder on which they have risen, and con- 
sider that all nations and generations of their race, 
and all the inhabitants of the earth but themselves, 
have been or are the dupes of priestcraft and super- 
stitious imposition. And yet I find these same 
people busying themselves with the problems of 
religion and things belonging to its territory, and 
tasking their powers to originate or construct what 
may serve man as a religion and life-directory, as 
after all the supreme thing in human well-being. If 
religion is nothing, why do they thus bother with it ? 
And why are they so much exercised about it ? * 

Dear friends, it is no easy thing to divorce religion 
from the mental, moral, and social life and interests 
of man. It thrusts itself upon us in spite of all 
resolves and theories. To live at all involves it. 
The natural development and entire history of mind 
and thought in every one who has a mental history 
inevitably bring us into the domain of religion. 
The consciousness of having a soul ; the inward 
sense of right and wrong, of dependence, duty, 

* Montesquieu used to say : " The pious man and the atheist 
always talk of religion. The one speaks of what he loves, the other 
of what \\c fears.'''' 



RELIGION. 107 



and responsibility ; the excellence of virtue and the 
attractiveness of what is true, beautiful, and good ; 
the conviction of the desirableness of order and the 
necessity for authority, of the sentiments and af- 
fections and needful protections of home ; and the 
active presence of a multitude of tender and aesthetic 
devotions which affect the hearts and command the 
energies of human kind, — all have in them religious 
elements which it is impossible for man to shake off 
and still remain a man. 

Religion is not an invention of human art or 
artifice, into which men may or may not suffer 
themselves to be persuaded. It is no more a con- 
trivance of man's skill or fears or superstitions than 
seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, or talking are such 
inventions. Like our natural senses and qualities, it 
is born with us. The foundations of it are framed 
into the constitution of our nature. We see because 
we have eyes ; we hear because we have ears ; we 
have sensations because we have senses ; and we 
eat, drink, and sleep because we have a nature which 
adapts us for it and makes it necessary to us. And 
so man is religious because he is a man, and cannot 
be or do without it. It is as old as he is, and has 
gone with him into all branches and nations of his 
race, and stays with him in spite of himself He 
may abuse it ; he may pervert it ; he may stifle its 



I08 RIGHT LIFE. 



impulses; he may disobey many of its most im- 
perious behests ; he may develop out of it all sorts 
of crudities, superstitions, fanaticisms, and even cr>-- 
ing crimes ; but he cannot separate it from the nature 
which his Creator gave him. He has a conscience, 
and that makes him religious. 

Some of our modern savants have framed a theory, 
and with unconscious irony have called it a science, 
whereby to account for the origin of religion as a 
creation of man himself. They tell us that his 
primitive state was that of " superstitious * atheism ;" 
that he dreamed dreams which gave him the idea 
of spiritual beings, ghosts, genii, and demons ; that 
he gradually exalted these into gods ; and that in 
reasoning about the matter he came to the idea of 
one supreme and eternal God, who, like all the rest, is 
only a creature of the imagination, but around which 
superstitious fears have built up all the religions that 
exist. This is the science put forward by men who 
want proof for what they believe — the science of 
imaginary ghost-dreams to explain away the reality 
of God. 

It used to be regarded as a sound maxim of 
reason that out of nothing nothing comes, and 
that where there is nothing but negation there 

-X- Why say "superstitious"? Where did tlie superstition come 
from ? 



RELIGION. 109 



is nothing but negation. How, then, could a noth- 
ing originate a something, or a state of natural 
atheism originate the stupendous idea of a God ? 
How could worship evolve from a condition which 
is the negative of worship, and in which no ideas 
creative of worship exist, and where there is no spirit 
to cognize spirit ? How could a state of native 
atheism bring forth, over against itself, and against 
the truth (if atheism be true), what has more than 
aught else commanded the convictions, beliefs, and 
activities of universal humanity for six thousand 
years ? How could superstitious terror (if there can 
be superstitious terror without a religious nature) 
create loving confidence, peaceful trust, and the 
most beneficent condition of human experience the 
earth has ever seen? How could man's loftiest, most 
cherished, and most potent ideals evolve themselves 
from his most dismal fears — fears of the spiritual 
without having a spiritual nature and sense? But 
for its connection with names otherwise justly hon- 
ored, and the heart-perverseness which desires to 
be rid of God and accountability, such a science 
would not find place outside of Bedlam. 

And yet these men talk of finding themselves " in 
the presence of an infinite and eternal Energy from 
which all things proceed " — of an ineradicable and 
everlasting consciousness of a Something which 



no RIGHT LIFE. 



transcends the limits of thought — of the need of 
some Object of consideration to excite our awe and 
gratitude, influence our Hves, and unite and govern 
men and societies by giving them common behefs 
and duties — of the indispensable necessity of some 
recognized and authoritative principles of virtue and 
right life — of some absolute Being as the necessary 
postulate of all thought ; in other words, that, when 
all is said and done, man, individual or social, mor- 
tal or immortal, cannot be and be happy without 
some sort of religion, and that he must have it in 
spite of everything. 

Ah yes ; gainsay it as we will, man is a religious 
being, the same that he is a rational, social, and sen- 
tient being. He is framed to religion, and cannot 
get himself away from it and be a right man. It is 
not the incidental and transient product of ignorant 
wonder, fear, and weakness in the presence of what 
is vast, terrible, unaccounted for, and monstrous; but 
a thing so grounded in our very constitution that no 
one can successfully help himself against it, any 
more than he can help himself against being a man. 
He may be an errorist in religion, but he cannot get 
away from some sort of religion. We have im- 
planted in us a spiritual and Godward sense espe- 
cially in conscience to fulfil the same offices toward 
the universe of spiritual realities which the bodily 



RELIGION. ■ III 



senses fulfil toward the material universe. We may 
weaken it by misuse, we may injure it by abuse, we 
may thwart it by stifling its testimony, we may make 
it the spring of vast wrongs ; but we cannot put it 
out or escape the ill consequences of its mistreat- 
ment. It is part of ourselves. 

I spoke a week ago of the natural necessity for 
belief in God. God and man exist for each other, 
the creature for his Creator, and the Creator for 
His creature. It is the most unnatural thing for 
them to remain apart. In the severance which sin 
has wrought, so long as the God-image in man is 
not wholly destroyed, the two struggle toward each 
other, " that God may be the God of man, and man 
become the man of God." 

God willed that man should be, and be the belov- 
ed of His heart, whom He cannot give up ; and man 
is ever dreaming of his good Father in heaven, even 
when he has no consciousness of it. The lifelong 
strivings of man are strivings for God far more than 
he knows or thinks. " The soul is a never-ending 
sigh after God." There is an inward, hidden, and 
inextinguishable sense of Him and of some destined 
goal reached only in union with Him. There is an 
everlasting feeling after the infinite and eternal. 
Nothing can satisfy the highest thoughts, aims, and 
desires of man but God. The deepest-felt need of 



RIGHT LIFE. 



our nature is God, and fellowship with the eternal 
One in whom to rest in love and peace. The soul 
came from God, and ever craves God. Humanity 
grasps for the infinite, and the infinite means God. 
The heart may err; it may deceive itself; it may 
take the unworthy, the transitory, or the imaginary 
for God ; it may even cleave to what is the most op- 
posed to God ; but it is all the while intending God, 
feeling after Him, and searching for the good found 
only in Him.* And this natural tie between God 
and man, this natural gravitation of the soul toward 
its infinite and eternal Source, is the true origin and 
foundation of all religion. 

Let me speak now of some of those vital elements 
of religion which are most objected to, that you may 
the better see how deeply it is seated in all the ac- 
tivities of our nature. 

There can be no question that the primary ele- 
ment of religion is faith.\ " All religion is faith." 

* " The religious nature is a blind instinct feeling for its object. 
It is an infant crying in the night for its food. It accepts whatever 
the intelligence offers as real and true, and consecrates it as the ob- 
jective revelation of real divinity." — Winchell's Science and Relig- 
ion, p. yj. 

t " Religion professedly deals with topics which lie outside the 
province of sensible observation — with spiritual facts, with a spiritual 
government, with a spiritual world. Belief in these is, and must bo, 
the belief of testimony. Careful regard to this principle will fore- 
close many forms of modern olijection to the truths of revelation." 
— Moore's The Age and the Gospel, p. 1 6. 



RELIGION. 



But this is the particular stumbhng-block and " rock 
of offence " to many. People desire to knozv, with- 
out the necessity of taking things on faith. They 
draw a distinction between knowing and believing, 
to the depreciation of faith as merely that thing 
which peoples the unknown with unrealities — the 
organ of superstition. They think everything must 
be proven and demonstrated to reason before it can 
be accepted or become knowledge. And because 
religion lives and moves in the realm of faith they 
consider it unreasonable and object to it as a miser- 
able deception. 

Now, if they mean that we should not believe 
without sufficient cause for believing, they are quite 
right ; but when they take the ground that nothing 
can be known through faith, and that certain know- 
ledge must go before faith, they go against the nature 
of man and render all certain knowledge impossible. 
The truth is, that all human life and knowing is as 
much grounded on faith as religion itself It is 
man's deepest nature to believe. It is a simple mat- 
ter of fact that all knowing, in the last analysis, is 
conditioned by faith, and that an act of believing is 
the preliminary and medium of every particle of 
our knowledge. Look at it for a moment. 

All knowing presupposes and depends on the facts 
that we are and that tue think. We cannot know if 

8 



114 RIGHT LIFE, 



we do not exist and do not exercise thought. But 
how do we know that we are and that we think ? 
How can we prove these facts ? We take it as cer- 
tain that we exist, think, wake, and dream. We say 
we know it. But we only know it by believing it, 
and not at all from any processes of logic or dem- 
onstration. Reason cannot prove it to us. We do 
not believe it without sufficient cause, but that cause 
is not reason. The medium through which we 
know it is the confidence we intuitively exercise in 
the testimony of our own consciousness, and nothing 
else ; for it is incapable of proof by reason. Only 
consciousness can tell us these things, and our know- 
ing them is the belief of the testimony of conscious- 
ness. But the belief of testimony of any sort is 
faith. 

People lay great stress on their own experience 
and observation, and say they positively know what 
thus comes within their range. But how do they know 
it ? The mind cannot of itself perceive the external 
world or what is seen and felt. It must depend en- 
tirely on the testimony of the senses for its percep- 
tions in these things. Blot out the senses, and a man 
can know nothing of an external world any more 
than a clod or a stone. But the belief of the testi- 
mony of the senses \?, faith, and nothing but faith. 

Children and adults get knowledge by learning — 



RELIGION. 1 1 5 



by being taught. But how can they know what they 
thus learn, or have it for truth, except as they credit 
those who teach them and beheve in the things 
taught ? They must needs take what is thus given 
them on the testimony and credibihty of their teach- 
ers, or it is no knowledge to them. But such belief 
of testimony \s faith, and nothing but faith. 

Take the whole range of the vast knowledge 
which some men possess, and there is not a particle 
of it which they do not hold on the testimony of 
consciousness, the testimony of the senses, the testi- 
mony of reason, or the testimony of some person or 
persons. But all such resting on testimony \s faith, 
and nothing but faith. 

Thus it turns out that all knowing, in the last 
analysis, is conditioned by faith, and that the pre- 
liminary and medium of all knowledge is believing: 
He who believes nothing knows nothing, and cannot 
know that he ever had a father or mother — whether 
the world exists or not — whether Napoleon Bona- 
parte, George Washington, or any other historic 
character ever lived — or whether he himself exists 
at all. He must be willing to believe, and to know 
by believing, or he necessarily cuts himself off from 
all knowing. 

Where, then, is the unnaturalness, the unreason- 
ableness, or the offence to a right thinking man that 



1 1 6 RIGHT LIFE, 



religion should have its essence and life in the ele- 
ment of faith ? No one can be, and know that he 
is, without faith ; and why should it be thought 
anomalous or strange that faith should be required 
to his being in right relations with God ? In the 
nature of things it cannot be otherwise. In other 
departments the most skeptical of men as frequently 
use the phrase " / believe " as the most confiding be- 
lievers. They cannot help it. It is the description 
of what they are doing every day in every act of 
their lives, and on which all their knowledge de- 
pends. It is therefore most unreasonable and absurd 
to fault religion as superstition simply because it 
lives and moves in the sphere of faith ; for they 
themselves are daily living, moving, and enjoying in 
the very same religious element.* 

* " Faith is the basis of all great, active enterprises. If a man 
cannot think well nor write well without faith, so in all difficult en- 
terprises which imply physical as well as mental effort he cannot act 
well. "Without faith there would have been no Parthenon, and no 
Pyramids of Egypt. Without faith there would have been no Ther- 
mopylae and no memorable Marathon. Hannibal could not have 
crossed the Alps without faith. Cincinnatus could neither have 
ploughed nor have left the plough, could neither have sowed for the 
harvest nor trained soldiers for victory, without faith. Cortes could 
not have conquered Mexico without faith. Columbus could not have 
crossed the ocean without faith. We speak not of religious but of 
natural faith. Park, Ledyard, Cook, and Bruce could not have ex- 
plored unknown countries without faith. The English, French, or 
American Revolution, whatever crimes accompanied them, could not 
have been accomplished without faith. The same maybe said of all 



RELIGION. 1 1 7 



There is some difference, indeed, in the range of 
things apprehended by rehgious faith from those be- 
longing to the sphere of the bodily senses ; but the 
medium by which they become realities to the soul 
is the same. Some of the most vital things which 
religion grasps lie beyond the observation of cor- 
poreal sense. Some of them are invisible and rang- 
ing through an infinite past, present, and future to 
which human observation in the nature of things 
cannot extend. But they are not therefore entirely 
unknowable, any more than our own existence, mind, 
soul, and spirit are entirely unknowable. God, who 
fills all infinity, can testify of these infinities, and we 
can so rest on His testimonies as that what they aver 
may become to us known realities. That He exists 
He can testify to our consciousness, and corroborate 
that testimony to our reason from His works as 

great civil and political movements. A mere sneerer, the man who 
sits in his easy-chair believing in nothing and laughing at every- 
thing, could have done nothing of these. No oceans are crossed by 
him ; no nations are conquered ; no boundless forests are subdued ; 
no rude barbarianism is tamed : no new civilization is planted and 
reared up at the expense of toil and blood in mighty triumph." So 
says Upham, showing how natural and necessary to man and all the 
great successes of life faith is, and how absurd in any one to object 
to religion because it involves the exercise of faith. The truth is, no 
man can be a man without adventure in this very department. More 
than half the machinery of life is moved by faith, and nothing but 
faith ; and that we should act on faith in matters respecting God and 
eternity is as reasonable as it is natural. 



1 1 8 RIGHT LIFE. 



clearly and certainly as He can make us conscious 
that we ourselves exist. And, having made this 
evident to us, all the rest is equally capable of being 
certified to us as matter of knowledge to affect and 
influence us. The question of a divine revelation I 
hold in abeyance for the present, but if it can be 
made evident that God has spoken for our learning, 
what He testifies we can as certainly know by be- 
lieving His Word as by believing any other sort of 
testimony. Our knowledge of spiritual realities and 
religious truth is thus no otherwise conditioned than 
any other knowledge. It is one of the necessities 
of man's nature to believe, and hence to live and 
move in the territory of religion. 

It is also true that religious faith differs somewhat 
from, and is something more than, mere intellectual 
conviction or that mental exercise by which we per- 
ceive the conclusiveness of a syllogistic argument, 
a mathematical axiom, or that two and two make 
four. Religious faith is partly a matter of moral 
persuasion, in which the will is participant in choos- 
ing and taking what presents itself as reasonably or 
consciously credible.* 

* "The will is one of the principal instruments of belief; not that 
it produces belief, but because things appear either true or false ac- 
cording to the light in which we view them. The will, which likes 
one point of view better than another, turns off the mind from con- 
sidering tliose qualities which it dislikes; and thus the understanding, 



RELIGION. 119 



The heart is concerned in our believing as well 
as the naked intellect. It is the harmony of 
reason, feeling, and purpose in apprehending the ob- 
jects or subject-matter of religious faith that makes 
up religious believing, and by it those objects become 
to us realities of knowledge to which our being con- 
forms. There is nothing forced, nothing arbitrary, 
nothing imaginary, nothing superstitious involved, 
but all is natural, inwardly confirmed, and made 
morally certain in the same way and through the 
same medium by which our knowledge in general is 
conditioned. 

Take, for example, the great central truth of all 
religion, the divine existence. Let it be put before 
the understanding that there is a God. What, then, 
is the process by which we come to realize it as a 
certitude of knowledge ? First, reason looks at it 
and perceives and decides upon the pre-eminent 
fittingness of the thing ; it finds its demands ade- 

keeping pace with the will, stops to look on the appearance that 
pleases it, and, judging by what it sees, insensibly regulates its belief 
by the inclination of the will." — Pascal's Thoughts on Religion, ch. 

XXV, 

" The perception of truth is a moral act — an act of the will, and 
not chiefly of the understanding. For even after every misapprehen- 
sion and doubt has been cleared up, it is the will which finally de- 
cides upon its reception or rejection. What we need, then, is will- 
ingness to know the truth." — Luthardt's Ftcndamental Truths, pp. 
35, 36. 



120 RIGHT LIFE, 



quately met as far as it has any right to demand 
in such a case ; it has nothing to interpose to render 
the acceptance of the proposition impossible, but 
much to support it as most probable. Along with 
this comes an inward feeling or spontaneous con- 
sciousness realizing that the thing is and must needs 
be, at the same time responding to it as exactly what 
it has been feeling after to fill up a vacancy which 
nothing else can fill. With these presentations the 
will also moves to take and abide by what is thus 
evidenced. And by these natural operations, by 
which any moral truth becomes reality to us, we 
have it as an article of knowledge that God is ; 
which is made all the more certain from the expe- 
rience of resting in and communion with Him. 

And so it is with regard to all moral and religious 
truths. The mind contemplates them, the heart re- 
sponds to them, and the will is pleased to accept and 
take them ; and so they are evidenced and substan- 
tiated to us the same as our knowledge that we are, 
that we think, that we wake, or that we dream. 

The great trouble with those who are skeptical 
touching religion is not so much that the truth is 
inadequately evidenced, but that there is a per- 
verseness of heart and will which does not like to 
retain God in the thoughts, but prefers and chooses 
not to believe; for in all other things they experi- 



RELIGION. 121 



ence no trouble whatever in daily living, acting, and 
thinking in this very element and essence of all re- 
ligion. Surely, if faith will do for life, action, and 
thought in other departments, it is just as legitimate 
and competent for the department of religion ; and 
there is something morally wrong where the con- 
trary is assumed. Nay, the veriest despisers of 
religion are continually living a good part of what 
they object to and despise. They oppose religion, 
and yet the main element of it is in them, part of 
their practical life, in all their knowledge and think- 
ing, and inseparable from their being. 

But religion is more than a mere naked and in- 
operative faith. It embraces also a life and activity 
toward the God whom it accepts. There must come 
with real faith a reverent fear and love of God and 
hope in Him, in which faith evidences its vitality. 
And this fear and love and hope, constituting what 
we may call the life of religion, must needs manifest 
and embody itself in worship, the opening of the 
heart to God, adoration, praise, coming to Him, 
intercourse and communion with Him, effort to 
please and be on terms with Him, and earnest desire 
to enjoy his favor and help ; all of which may be 
summed up and expressed in the one word prayer. 
No one questions the statement that " all religion is 
faith," and so it will be equally admitted that the life 



122 RIGHT LIFE. 



of all religion is prayer. A religion without prayer 
is as impossible as a religion without faith. 

But the worth of prayer is again one of the par- 
ticular things attacked by our modern skeptical 
thinkers. Of course, as they deny the existence 
of a personal God and regard all religious faith 
as mere superstition, it is logical from that point of 
view for them to make light of all acts of worship 
and to sneer at prayer. But as they have against 
them the best wisdom and virtue of universal man 
in the one case, so they are altogether without just 
reason in this. Nay, having never honestly and 
faithfully tried it themselves, on their own princi- 
ples they are in right estopped from having any 
say or judgment in the matter. Let them as fully 
and as assiduously test it by devout personal ex- 
periment as they have labored in the fields of science 
through which they have come to the persuasion that 
there is no God, and we have the assurance of One 
who has never been convicted of mistake or a lie 
that they will come out effectually cured of their 
skeptical ridicule. 

But even as it is, these revilers of prayer must 
either be very malignant and misanthropic, or they 
live every day in the very spirit of what the\- so 
much depreciate. Is it true that they never feel 
wants which they desire to have satisfied ? Is it 



RELIGION. 123 



true that there never rises in their souls one good, 
kindly, and earnest wish for any being on earth ? Is 
it true that they are conscious of no blessing or 
benediction which they would fain have conferred 
upon their friends, upon society, upon the sorrowing 
and wretched, upon the ignorant, destitute, and for- 
lorn ? Is it true that they have no homes, no do- 
mestic circles, which they love enough to desire to 
make happy ? Is it true that kindred and country 
and the welfare of the race are things of so much 
indifference to their hearts as never to command 
from them a single thought or sigh or motion of 
kindly solicitude, or any welling interest to have 
them prosper and be at peace and share exemption 
from ills they know of? If so, then they have 
ceased to be men, and the best we can do for them 
is to provide for them asylums and attendants where 
they may end their earthly days without danger to 
good citizens. But if not so — as we happily have 
abundant proofs — then do they in large measure live 
and cherish the very thing at which they sneer. 

There is also a very vital connection between 
work and prayer. If we are in real earnest in work- 
ing for a thing, we are inwardly praying for it. 
Whatever takes hold upon the soul, awakens desire, 
and stimulates aspiration and effort, thus awakens 
the spirit of prayer. Whenever our souls go out 



124 RIGHT LIFE. 



after an object, and our energies are put into opera- 
tion for its attainment, there are all the elements of 
prayer. There may be no looking to God to help in 
the case. There may be no devout composing of 
the heart to rest on Him, His grace, and His will 
for what is sought ; but there still is that inward 
conditioning of the mind and feelings which marks 
the nature of prayer, and without which effort is 
aimless and achievement is impossible. And those 
who ridicule prayer ridicule an element of their own 
life without which they are next thing to nothing. 
If men will not acknowledge God, and believe in 
Him, and apply to Him, and rest in His omnific 
power and promise to hear those who truly call 
upon Him, they do pray, nevertheless — pray every 
day, and cannot help praying, for only thereby do 
they accomplish anything. They do not pray as it 
becomes a needy creature to pray to his Creator, 
but after their own fashion they are continually ex- 
ercising themselves in the element of prayer ; and 
they stultify their own nature by railing at prayer. 
And as the spirit of prayer is thus necessarily con- 
joined with efficient life, it is absurd to make light 
of its exercise in communion with the prayer- hear- 
ing God to invoke His promised favor and help. 

The truth is, that there is nothing on earth more 
natural, more reasonable, more needful, more uni- 



RELIGION, 12$ 



versal to a right man, than just this spirit of prayer. 
Whether or not it is really directed to the good God 
who is pledged to hear and answer it, and to whom 
alone it is properly directed, it nevertheless has some 
sort of existence in all hearts. Among all nations, 
the obscure and the renowned, the civilized and bar- 
barous, we meet at every step with acts and forms 
of invocation, and the veriest skeptics are not alto- 
gether exceptions. 

In the pre-Christian times, among the most cul- 
tured peoples, prayer had the highest honor and 
most conspicuous place in both public and private 
life. Pericles never addressed an audience without 
first praying. Cornelius Scipio never undertook an 
enterprise or campaign without passing some time 
alone in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Plato 
instructed all within his reach that the best and no- 
blest action which a virtuous man can perform, and 
the most needful to his prosperity in life, is to live by 
vows and prayers. And the best and wisest and 
greatest men who have ever lived in any of the ages 
have taught and practised the same ; while even the 
least religious are often found with the words of 
prayer upon their lips or with its spirit sighing from 
their hearts, demonstrating how impossible it is for 
man to divorce himself entirely from religion. 

Volney, so notorious for his infidel principles, 



126 RIGHT LIFE. 



during a dreadful storm on Lake Erie, when . all 
were likely to go to the bottom, flung himself on the 
deck of the dismasted vessel, and with uplifted hands 
and streaming eyes called upon God for help, though 
he was ashamed of it afterward, and said it was a 
meaningless thing extorted from him in an instant 
of alarm. Voltaire in his last sickness repeatedly 
called on Christ, and even threw himself from his 
bed, crying in convulsive agony, " Will not this God, 
whom I have denied, save me too ? Cannot infinite 
mercy extend to me?" Paine in his last hours cried 
again and again in his anguish, " O Lord, help me ! 
Jesus Christ, help me ! O God, help me !" though 
when asked whether he believed in Christ he said he 
had no wish to believe on that subject. All this 
shows how impossible it is even for the most con- 
fident and cherished atheism to kill out of the soul 
its inner cry for God or to suppress the naturalness 
of prayer. 

Dear friends, I will not detain you longer on this 
topic. I think I have said enough to prove that man 
is constitutionally religious — that he has a religious 
nature which he cannot possibly rid himself of, and 
which only needs to be rightly directed to reach 
right life. It is therefore a thing of more vital im- 
port and dignity than the popular apprehension is 
wont to assign to it. What we need is deeper and 



RELIGION. 127 



clearer views of it, for the nearer we get to the heart 
and real nature of the subject, the closer do we find 
ourselves related to it, and the more worthy of our 
interest and practical consideration does it show it- 
self to be. And my earnest wish is that you may 
each give it the reverent attention which it deserves. 
I close with the words of one of our living Ger- 
man divines : " The dangers of our times are unde- 
niable. A restless, unhappy spirit of passion and 
skepticism is lurking behind the progress of the 
present for the prey of the future. It must be con- 
quered — not by external force, but by intellectual 
power, and especially by that greatest of intellectual 
powers, religion ; not by any external arrangements, 
but by the spirit that is to animate it, even by the 
spirit of religion, that the progressive development 
of civilization can become a blessing to mankind. It 
is our part to infuse religion into the movements of 
to-day, and thus unite them to a power which will 
impel effort and make it a blessing to the world. 
And the advocates and promoters of modern culture 
should know, and take to heart the fact, that all this 
progress, as well as natural development in general, 
bears within itself the seeds of death, and is without 
abiding value or true moral worth unless combined 
with those eternal and vital forces which spread 
themselves over all the changes of this mortal life 



128 RIGHT LIFE. 



as the heavens over the earth, and from which this 
life must receive its inward strength and blessing. 
Hence, I repeat it, the combination of religion with 
moral progress is the vital question of the day." * 

*Luthardt's Fundamental Truths, p. 154. 



LECTURE FIFTH. 

J^eason anti Eebelatton. 

2 Pet. 1:19: We have also a more sure word of prophecy; 
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth 
in a dark place. 

I HAVE thus far been discussing the foundation- 
questions of Right Life on the basis of Nature 
and natural reason. I have adopted this course in 
order to find a common ground on which to start 
these great inquiries. 

Skepticism makes much of man's reason, and lays 
supreme stress upon what can be made out on the 
basis of reason. Nor is it reasonable for any one to 
depreciate reason. Luther says that " it is a settled 
point that reason is, among all things in the life of 
man, the chiefest and the best — something divine, 
something like a sun or a god placed over the 
government of things in this life." It is the nature 
of man to respect and honor reason. Nor can we 
get on at all without reason. Therefore I have en- 
deavored to bring my hearers face to face with 
natural realities, and by fair deductions of reason 

9 129 



130 RIGHT LIFE. 



to show that Hfe in its own nature and necessities 
requires to be disposed according to the Hnes in- 
dicated by Christianity. The enigma of our exist- 
ence, derivation, and destiny must have some sort 
of inteUigent solution ; and if it can be shown that 
the groundwork of the Christian solution exists in 
the elementary constitution of things, we have come 
a great way in the argument for its ^icceptance as the 
only true solution. 

But unaided natural reason is by no means suf- 
ficient for human guidance in these momentous 
matters. Luther has admonished us that Nature, 
left to herself, inevitably wanders into mazes of un- 
certainty, involves herself in darkness and error, and 
becomes the victim of folly and despair. Goethe has 
recorded the confession that " Nature tosses her 
creatures out of nothingness, and tells them not 
whence they came or whither they go. . . . She 
wraps man in darkness and makes him for ever long 
for light. She creates him dependent upon the earth, 
dull, and heavy, and yet is always shaking him until 
he attempts to soar above it." And, so far as the 
study of Nature alone is concerned, the records of 
the race show that there is an inevitable helplessness 
in man's unassisted powers to lift him above the 
darkness of desperation touching the noblest aspi- 
rations of his being. All histoiy shows an incxtin- 



REASON AND REVELATION. 



guishable consciousness that we need '' a more sure 
word of prophecy " — a clearer and more authorita- 
tive teaching than human philosophy can give — a 
word or revelation from the eternal God himself 

All religions appeal to revelation — to some sort of 
supernaturally communicated information for the en- 
lightenment and guidance of men to a right ordering 
of their thinking and lives. This fact goes far to show 
that reason itself perceives the necessity, assumes the 
possibility, and encourages the expectation of some 
supernatural illumination. Nay, it is doubtful if any 
large numbers of people on this earth have ever been 
totally without some influences of divine revelation. 

As man everywhere, in all known ages, has had 
some sort of theology and religion, it is reasonable 
to assume, as the oldest records of the race all 
affirm, that God did give to him at the beginning 
a full understanding of whatever was needful for 
him throughout his generations, and that all the 
theologies and religions of the later Gentile world 
were only perverted and distorted remains of that 
primitive revelation. Evil is simply the spoliation 
of good, and heathenism is best interpreted as the 
base degeneration of what was pure and true at the 
start. 

The apostle Paul says that whatever could be 
known of God was originally made manifest, but 



132 RIGHT LIFE. 



that men were untrue in their deahng toward this 
knowledge, clouded it with their vain imaginings, 
darkened their hearts by turning from the sacred 
light, and in the foolishness of their own conceits 
** changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into 
an image, made like to corruptible man, and to birds, 
and to four-footed beasts, and creeping things — 
changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped 
and served the creature more than the Creator." 
Heathenism itself, with all its filthy abominations, 
still witnesses to some original divine revelation as 
its starting-point. " All religions rest on ancient 
traditions." And if this be true, as we have reason 
to believe that it is, we reach the further conclusion 
that God never intended natural reason to be man's 
only guide in the adjustment of himself to Right 
Life, and that the supply to him of a supernatural 
revelation was a thing contemplated in his creation 
and furnished from the beginning. 

The nature of the case also implies this. From 
the Godward sense in man and from his everlasting 
feeling after God we are certified that he was made 
for God and to find his rest in God. But how could 
we ever attain this goal unless God first moves to- 
ward us and presents Himself to our understanding 
and embrace — that is, reveals Himself? * 

* The sneer that God must be looked on as a 'prentice Creator, 



REASON AND REVELATION. 133 

Something of a revelation God has actually given 
us in our consciousness, and further attested it in 
His works and government of the world. He has 
thus taken the attitude of a revelator of Himself to 
man. And if He be a revelator at all, why should 
He not extend it to a positive and historical revela- 
tion also, particularly as man is found to be so weak 
and erring as not to be able accurately to read what 
has been expressed in Nature ? We cannot well 
conceive of a good and gracious Creator making a 
creature like man, and putting him in a world of 
mystery, perplexity, and sorrow like this, without 
adequately furnishing him with the equipment and 
instruction necessary to make a happy success of his 
being. And when the distressed outcry of universal 
man is, " Oh that I knew where I might find Him ! 
that I might come even to His seat ! I would know 
the words which He would answer me, and under- 
changing His mind, improving with practice, obliged to mend up 
mistakes in the original constitution of things, the world being shaped 
in so poor a way that it does not answer His intentions, so that there 
had to be miraculous interference by revelation to set it right, — is 
therefore unreasonable and impertinent. Man was made to know, 
obey, and enjoy God, and revelation is a necessary postulate for the 
accomplishment of his destiny in this respect. There could be no 
knowing or enjoying God without placing the human mind in con- 
verse with the divine Mind ; and such converse is revelation, whether 
provided for in the order of primeval Nature or by merciful interfer- 
ence since the Fall to help our diseased and clouded natural powers, 
which the Fall has so disabled. 



134 RIGHT LIFE. 



stand what he would say to me," God would appear 
less gracious than the affection He has planted in 
the parental heart not to give some answer to it. 

In the nature of things it is not for man fully to 
know God, for what is finite can never fully know 
the Infinite. We are too limited in nature and ca- 
pacity for the absolute and infinite One to give us 
such a communication of Himself as that we should 
know Him completely. At the utmost, we can only 
know in part and see as through a glass darkly. 
While linked with flesh and blood we never can get 
beyond Moses, who could see only the hinder parts 
of Jehovah after He had passed by. 

But while there is that which cannot by any means 
be known of God, there is also that which can be 
known. We may know the sea when it is before us, 
and yet know nothing of its profounder depths or 
where its farther boundaries lie. We can know the 
rock when we strike it, although we know not its 
extent or how far it reaches toward the heart of the 
world. And if we cannot <r^;;/prehend the infinite 
One, we may still ^/prehend Him, provided it should 
please Him to condescend to reveal to us, in wa}'s 
suited to our finite nature, those elements of His in- 
visible and unapproachable Being and Mind which 
we need to know. 

The office of revelation is often misunderstood 



REASON AND RE VELA TION 1 3 5 

and misrepresented. It is not to antagonize reason, 
to supersede or supplant it, but to help and supple- 
ment it. Revelation and right reason are from the 
same God, and cannot be at variance. If there is at 
any time any antagonism between them, it is from 
one of two things : either that the revelation has 
been misinterpreted and misunderstood, which in the 
present condition of man is not impossible, or that 
reason is at fault and in error in some of its conclu- 
sions, to which in the imperfections adhering to man 
it is very liable. But when revelation is clear and 
reason has set itself right, the two must harmonize 
as surely as the eternal God is one and supreme. 

Revelation itself appeals to reason, and demands 
the employment of it to test its claims and to inter- 
pret and understand its communications, and does 
not propose in any way to do away with reason. 
There must be reason or there can be no revelation, 
for reason is the organ for the perception of revela- 
tion, and is the necessary prepostulate of revelation. 
The office of revelation is simply to acquaint reason 
with things beyond reason's range, and to reutter 
with fresh authority and new lustre certain truths 
which reason might know or does know, but is 
prone to overlook or disregard. Contemplate reason 
as the eye of the mind, and revelation is the tele- 
scope to clear and enlarge its field of vision. Con- 



36 RIGHT LIFE. 



template reason as the arm of the soul, and reve- 
lation is the heavenly extension of its leverage to 
multiply its power. Contemplate reason as the com- 
mon method of managing quantity and number, and 
revelation is the .higher calculus to handle problems 
to which reason is largely incompetent without this 
additional help. Revelation is not meant to limit 
reason or to abridge its sphere, but to furnish it with 
a ladder to ascend into a clearer atmosphere and find 
footing for a wider and more certain outlook. And 
hence also it is confined to those things which are 
necessary to bring us to a right apprehension of God 
and into saving fellowship with Him. 

Now, that a revelation is desirable, and would be 
a precious boon to those destitute of it, I do not see 
how any one in his right mind can think of denying. 
I doubt if even the veriest unbeliever, at all honest 
with himself, would not esteem it an unspeakable 
relief could he be favored with some certain light to 
clear up to his mind a multitude of profound prob- 
lems which completely baffle his reason, and which 
he has found it utterly impossible for him conclu- 
sively to solve. 

Our holy books tell us of a time at the beginning 
of the race when the normal condition of man was 
that of intimate communion with the di\-ine Intelli- 
gence, and all knowledge and understanding ncces- 



REASON AND REVELATION. 1 3/ 

sary to his estate, relations, and highest happiness 
were as perfectly reflected in his soul as the best 
mirror reflects the image placed before it. Whatever 
has intervened to disturb and destroy that state of 
things, it is nowhere so now, and has not been since 
the stream of human generations left the original 
parentage. Admitting all the progress which it is 
claimed that mankind has made in the course of 
these thousands of years, admitting all the wonder- 
ful advances in human science and knowledge which 
so mark our modern times, admitting all that the 
natural powers of man have been able to achieve in 
the various departments of human research in the 
course of the ages, — when it comes to the questions, 
What we are ? Whence we are ? Who made us ? 
What is that infinite and eternal Power to which our 
whole being so strongly testifies ? What is our re- 
lation to that Power ? What obligations are involved 
in that relation ? and What is to become of us when 
this life is over ? — and when it comes to any clear 
answer to these inquiries, apart from what claims to 
be the positive revelation of God, the annals of reason 
are as blank to-day as they were three thousand 
years ago. 

Long and earnestly have the greatest intellects 
and geniuses of the world been employed on these 
subjects, but what, apart from revelation, have phil- 



138 RIGHT LIFE. 



osophy and science to show as the result ? What 
actual gain to moral and religious knowledge has 
come from all this mighty and multitudinous activity 
of the best intellect of the race ? In other depart- 
ments we can collect bodies of truth which remain 
as fixed results on which to proceed for further ad- 
vances ; but in the realm of the questions I have 
named who can show us anything of the sort ? The 
strange fact stares us in the face that in the realm of 
theology and religious truth all the philosophy and 
philosophizing of man has resulted in nothing def- 
inite or settled. By the time one system came into 
favorable regard another came and completely upset 
it. And so nothing permanent has been gained. 

A learned German divine has said, with truth : 
** No philosophy which entirely rejected the aid 
of revelation, and sought to comprehend the world 
and God by mere efforts of reason, ever succeeded 
in attaining to any positive lasting results. From 
Thales and Pythagoras onward to Hegel and Her- 
bert, not only has one system presently supplanted 
another, but critically demolished what went before. 
In criticism and negation philosophy has made 
mighty strides, and men have grown wise to pull 
down, but not to build up. Down to this present 
philosophers have come to no agreement even as to 
the basis from which philosophical speculation is to 



REASON AND RE VELA TION 1 39 

proceed — whether from some general principles or 
idea or from matter ; whether from the idea of pure 
being or from human consciousness ; they are not yet 
agreed as to the relation between the real and the 
ideal, whether the former or the latter is that which 
truly is ; they are not yet agreed as to the idea and 
nature of God and His relation to the world, nor as 
to that of man, his reason and his spirit ; they are 
not yet agreed as to the relation existing between 
body, soul, and spirit ; nor as to our freedom of will 
and our accountability; [nor as to whence we came 
or whither we are going ;] nor, in short, as to any 
one fundamental question in speculative knowledge, 
morals, or religion. In whatever direction we turn, 
we find ourselves confronted by open questions, un- 
solved problems, and views diametrically opposed or 
importantly divergent." * 

Apart from revelation, what can all the intellect 
and reason of this world tell us about the Deity ? 
Consult the brightest pages in the history of heathen- 
dom, and what solid information is to be found ? If 
we go to Greece at the period when intellect was 
busiest, when philosophy was at its proudest height, 
when the mightiest minds were most active with 
these profound inquiries, what is the showing? 
Athens acknowledged almost as many gods as it 

* Christlieb on Modern Doubt, pp. 143, 144. 



I40 RIGHT LIFE. 



had citizens. There were great philosophers, but 
Socrates proved that they had no certain knowledge 
which they could affirm touching the origin of 
things, God, man, or futurity. He himself believed 
in a God, the soul, immortality, and something of 
eternal justice, but he professedly rested much 
on the superhuman impulse of his demon — said 
that mankind must look to a higher Source than 
man for certain knowledge, and when he came to 
leave the world composed a hymn to Apollo, ren- 
dered sacrifice to a dumb idol, and told his friends 
that only the gods knew whether the next life would 
be any better than this. There was talk of deity and 
" gods," but none of the Greek philosophers ever 
attained to a consistent idea of one personal God 
and Creator of all things. The God of their specu- 
lations was ever being lost in a multiplicity of gods 
or in Nature or in some vague and powerless gen- 
eralization. Even Socrates and Plato never con- 
ceived and consistently held to the thought of one 
only God, the absolute Creator of all things, and 
never once distinctly raised the question of the 
divine personality. Aristotle came a little nearer 
to the truth, but still his Deity was limited by pri- 
mordial matter. According to him, Deity gave 
shape to the crude materials of the world, but was 
not its absolute and independent creator; and this 



REASON AND REVELATION. I4I 

only after the knowledge of the God of revelation, 
worshipped by the Jews and Christians, had begun 
to shed its light on the best Gentile mind, which was 
travelling the world over in search of truth. All the 
Greek and Roman philosophers asserted the neces- 
sary eternity of matter, and thereby disabled all 
right conceptions of God. Taking them all together, 
no " genuine idea of God " is to be found among 
them. And with no other light but their teachings 
to guide us we would be obliged to conclude that 
God may be one or a thousand, the universe or 
an unknowable Something in or above the universe 
— a star, a sun, a universal aether, or an absolute 
nothing ; while the very best of them confessed that 
they knew not what worship to pay, what prayers to 
offer, or what behavior toward gods or men was 
right, and that only some lawgiver from heaven 
or some divine or inspired man could duly instruct 
the human race. 

Shall we go, then, to the Brahmans of India, whom 
some are lauding as the most philosophic thinkers 
of the heathen world ? There, again, the objects of 
popular worship are nearly as multitudinous as men, 
while the doctrines of the learned do not allow of 
the existence of any real God whatever.* 

* A Hindu priest, writing of the religion of his country, says : 
" The common polytheism has grown up out of the nature of things 



142 RIGHT LIFE. 



And wherein is it essentially better with our mod- 
ern savants, who make it a virtue to discard revela- 
tion ? Some of them tell us that God and Nature 
are one and the same, and that body and spirit have 

and out of observations of phenomena exceedingly inaccurate and 
short-sighted. It is to many of us merely traditional symbolism, use- 
ful to simple-hearted devotion — nothing more than a fantastic mys- 
tery-play, exhibiting under various figures and disguises the marvel- 
lous drama of Nature. Hindu mythology is mere imagination ; the 
divinities are shadows and signs of the Incomprehensible. For the 
i-eal substance of my country's religion, the mainspring that moves 
the puppet-show of the popular idolatry, is pantheism. Going behind 
the ordinary rites of worship and propitiations to understand the inner 
nature of divine government, the Deity pervades and is immanent in 
all forces and forms, and the gods adored are mere embodiments of, 
or emanations from, the universal Energy. We of India doubt all 
theories of a watchful Providence, and the natural consequence has 
been a strong tendency to fatalism. . . . Nothing is more certain 
than that for centuries the prevailing beliefs of all Hindus who form 
any definite ideas on questions touching God and immortality have 
been colored and moulded by pantheism. And if there is one meta- 
physical dogma that has taken a kind of physical shape, it is the be- 
lief in metempsychosis — i. e. in a scheme of future existence regu- 
lated, not according to the decision of a supreme Judge in faith and 
morals, but by the spontaneous and natural operation of a soul's ex- 
periences. . . . My countrymen have never attained the imperial 
conception of a paramount, omnipotent, actively-governing power." — 
Vamadeva Shastin in The Fortnightly Review. 

Some of the loftiest Rig- Veda songs are burdened with the refrain 
of total doubt : 

" Who is the God to whom our gifts belong ?" 

And as to Buddhism, it is atheism strangely merged into idolatiy, 
and is described as " a spiritualism without soul, a virtue without 
duty, a moral without liberty, a chaiity without love, a world without 
nature and without God." 



REASON AND REVELATION. 1 43 

one and the same essence and destiny. Others tell 
us that God is only an idea, a creation of man him- 
self, and that collective humanity alone is entitled to 
the reverence, respect, and service usually thought 
to belong to Deity. Others tell us that all being is 
a state of flux, that it is simply a becoming ; that all 
knowledge is relative to its age ; that there is noth- 
ing absolute ; that everything is a progress ; that we 
can only know and do with what is while it is pass- 
ing away into what will be, thus leaving no room for 
any God unconditioned by what conditions all else. 
Others tell us that there may or may not be a God, 
so far as can be determined by reason and science ; 
and that if there be a God it is beyond the power of 
reason to know anything about Him or whether He 
exists or not ; while still another school denies that 
there is any such thing as God or spirit, and affirms 
that all being is simply matter organized or condi- 
tioned as accident or chance or some unknown 
energy in itself determines. And yet these are all 
philosophers, representatives of the highest reason 
and science ! 

What the wiser are we, then, for all that the ora- 
cles of unaided human reason, ancient and modern, 
agree in teaching us about God ? One claims that 
he has proved one thing, and another claims that he 
has proved the contrary, and among them all it can- 



144 RIGHT LIFE. 



not be made out whether there is a God or not; 
while those who teach that there is one are in no 
manner agreed as to what He is, what His relation 
to the universe, or what we in our infirmities may 
confidently hope from Him. Thus the apostolic 
declaration stands, that " the zvorld by unsdoin knew 
not Gody It felt after Him, and sometimes came 
very near Him, but it was a groping in the dark. 
After natural reason had done its best the poet still 
could say in truth, 

" Except the gods themselves to thee unveil, 
Search as thou wilt the world, thou seek'st in vain." 

And so to this day and hour. Where man is with- 
out the light of revelation or thrusts it from him, 
there he is " without God, and without hope in the 
world," and can never know God or rightly know 
himself 

And with everything in doubt and uncertainty re- 
specting the divine existence, nature, relations, and 
purposes, there can be no clear and reliable under- 
standing of duty, righteousness, or what to count on 
or aim at respecting futurity. The suggestions of 
conscience, the moral heart-throbs resulting from 
conscience, and the consideration of tendencies in 
actions to edify or injure life, society, and the state, 
may give men some vague idea of virtue and pro- 



REASON AND REVELATION. 1 45 

priety; but where the hght of special revelation is 
absent or discarded there is as much confusion, con- 
tradiction, and unsatisfactoriness among philosophers 
on the subject of morals as upon the subject of the 
Godhead. Even Kant himself has said : " We may- 
well concede that if the gospel had not previously 
taught the universal laws of morals, reason would 
not yet have attained so perfect an insight of them." 
Though men have the law written in themselves, 
so that they are without excuse for their manifold 
aberrations from righteousness, and the natural man 
has never failed in ability to understand much more 
of proper life than he has ever lived up to, conscience 
itself is liable to gross perversions, and depends on 
culture, knowledge, and the quickening insight of 
proper conceptions of God and our relations to Him. 
There is no perfect inner light without a fixed exter- 
nal record to accompany it, by which to correct the 
cloudiness of all the apprehensions of undisciplined 
and ever-erring human nature. There never was, 
and there never can be, a perfect code of moral duty 
apart from supernatural revelation. As a matter of 
fact, the best moral systems evolved by the best of 
the heathen philosophers are full of defects, confound 
various virtues and vices, omit things essential, in- 
clude things that need retrenchment, and lack in any 

certain and sufficient principle to which human con- 
10 



146 RIGHT LIFE. 



duct is to be obligated. A glance at Plato's ideal 
republic will abundantly show this. 

What would you think of having all goods, all 
wives, and all children in common ? of having the 
public authorities charged to kill all weakly and 
sickly persons, young and old ? of all occupations, 
possessions, and worships conditioned to the will 
and pleasure of the state ? of the infliction of death 
upon all who fail to conform to the appointed cere- 
monies of devotion to the national gods ? Yet this 
great man recommended all these, while others went 
quite as far astray in other directions. 

The hard and cheerless Stoicism embraced by a 
few, who thereby separated themselves in part from 
the general degradation, aimed at repressing the 
passions by a violence so unnatural that it crushed 
out of them some of the humanest and most elevat- 
ing emotions. Its self-satisfaction and exclusiveness 
repelled the gentlest and sweetest natures. It made 
a vice of compassion ; it cherished a haughtiness 
which in itself was sin. It looked on human nature 
in its normal aspects with contemptuous disgust. Its 
marked characteristic was a despairing sadness. Its 
favorite theme was the glorification of suicide as the 
one ready refuge against oppression and outrage. It 
could lacerate the heart with indignation at the 
meannesses and crimes of mankind, which it \'ainl\^ 



REASON AND REVELATION. 1 47 

strove to resist, but scarcely once hoped to stem the 
ever-sweUing tide of vice and misery. For wretch- 
edness it had no pity. It looked on vice with dis- 
dain, without sympathy to help up the fallen and 
without power to check evil by its proud contempt. 
And even for those of rank, wealth, and virtue it had 
nothing to offer but a crushed life and a death of 
utter despair. 

And with all that the better philosophy could do 
to instruct and direct men in virtue and goodness, 
the grossest infamies were wrapped up in the sanc- 
tions of religion, and a disgusting rottenness of pub- 
lic and private morals ever grew, until the nations 
and cities of the pagan world one after another sank 
beneath the weight of their own corruption, and 
went down under the inexorable penalties of sin. 

Our modern rationalists and infidels have learned 
from Christianity to teach and practise better codes 
than those of the heathen, and in numerous cases 
make a grand parade in the humanitarian plumes 
they have borrowed from the gospel they despise. 
But separated from the living stock which grew 
them, and committed to such connections and sup- 
ports as the teachings which our materialistic philos- 
ophers laud as the latest and completest products of 
human reason and science, we may well look for even 
a worse order of things than marked the old pagan 



148 RIGHT LIFE. 



civilizations. Let it once come to be the accredited 
truth that the universe is Godless, and that man has 
no immortal spirit, no ethical personality, no moral 
freedom, no sacred accountability to Heaven, no law 
of being but an absolute natural necessity, and no 
future but in the sufficiency of an inborn energy to 
enable him to survive in his offspring, — and the 
whole idea of essential and eternal morality to bind, 
influence, and govern the unruly will and wayward 
passions is for ever at an end. Might becomes the 
only law of Right, and society must revert to the 
bloody and beastly savagery from which these 
savants say it has been lifted.* 

So, then, it goes, and must ever go, with poor, 
benighted, and fallen man without the light and help 
of a supernatural revelation. And yet this does not 
give the whole case. 

* A number of the hierophants of materialism and evolution, espe- 
cially in Germany, unhesitatingly avow that their whole system is 
non-moral, and everywhere the defenders of it dodge or lay aside 
the ethical relations of the question. In the contemplation of agnos- 
tic scientists the evolving power is the supreme Force in the universe. 
What basis is there, then, at bottom for morality ? May not those, 
then, prove to be right, who say, with Dr. Denslow, that the com- 
mandment against stealing or lying is the law of '• the top dog," and 
nothing more ? When the belief is that evolution is all, and that it 
brings forth only to destroy in the end, will not the result be a moral 
chaos? These grim features of materialistic philosophy are already 
manifesting themselves in Nihilism and order-subverting Socialism ; 
and if these are the bcfrinninjis, what will the end l)e ? 



REASON AND REVELATION. 1 49 

Man is guilty and depraved as well as benighted ; 
and this is also the true source of all that is dis- 
abling and afflictive in his native condition. There 
is such a thing as sin. It is upon all the race. 
Wherever there is a conscience not altogether 
seared and suppressed, there is also some sense 
of it. There is no right man living who does not 
have upon him the consciousness of many a wrong 
to which he has yielded, and of having had the 
opportunity of being a better man than he has been. 
The best as well as the worst are obliged to make 
this confession if true to the deepest convictions of 
their hearts. Marcus Aurelius, considering his cir- 
cumstances and temptations as the supreme ruler of 
a vast empire in a wicked and sensual age, was the 
greatest phenomenon of virtue and goodness the 
pagan world ever produced, and yet he solemnly 
and sorrowfully declared, " I should have lived 
better than I have done had I always followed the 
monitions of the gods." 

Somehow or other, universal humanity has become 
the subject of some powerful moral disease which is 
ever hurrying man into what his better wisdom con- 
demns. Even a Socinian writer says : "A man must 
be a fool, nay, a stock or a stone, not to believe it. 
He has no eyes, he has no senses, he has no per- 
ceptions, if he refuses to believe it." What is the 



T50 RIGHT LIFE. 



meaning of locks and bolts and bonds and oaths and 
courts of justice and magistrates and police and 
watchmen and jails and penitentiaries and death- 
penalties and military forces and territorial defences 
and fortifications, if it be not that man cannot trust his 
fellow-man and be safe in property, honor, life, and 
home? What is the staple of all secular history but 
an account of outbreaking passions and the efforts 
of men to subdue them and guard against them ? 
What is all philosophy but the struggle of the 
human mind to rid itself of falsehood, error, and 
various weaknesses or depravities, which, after all, 
have still proved themselves invincible to the powers 
of reason ? And what is the deepest undertone in 
all human feeling and utterance but lamentation over 
unconquerable evils — evils of which there is no ade- 
quate explanation, and no hope of cure apart from 
divine revelation ?* 

* " It is rather a serious matter for skeptics to consider that there is 
so much incurable evil and suffering in the world. The Scriptures 
declare sin to be a fact, and our conscience, whether we like it or 
not, answers Yes. A disturbance has thus broken into the world, a 
hinderance and corruption of its development. Schopenhauer says : 
* If anything could reconcile me to the Old Testament, it would be 
the myth (?) of the fall of man ; for, in reality, the condition of the 
world looks precisely like the condition of punishment for a great 
past transgression.'. . . * The world is fundamentally only so well 
arranged as is necessary for its existence. If its arrangement were 
any worse, it could not exist.' Melchior Meyer says : ' God cannot 
have created the world in a state of actual perversion.' Thus, even 
they who do not believe in revelation come througli their reason to 



REASON AND RE VELA TION 1 5 I 

What, indeed, can unaided human reason do with 
sin? Reason must admit its presence and power. 
Even Seneca laid it down as a great universal truth, 
** We are all wicked ; what one man blames in an- 
other, each will find in his own bosom. We are 
wicked, and we live among the wicked." Man is 
not absolute wickedness. We may still find some- 
thing good and praiseworthy in all communities and 
in almost every man. But with all that is good, 
there is much more that is bad and continually over- 
mastering the good. Revelation tells whence the 
trouble came, and revelation points out the way of 
its cure ; but without revelation human reason stands 
for ever confounded and helpless in the presence of 
sin and depravity. Among all the gods of the 
heathen world there is no God of absolute purity, 
no God of grace, mercy, and forgiveness, no power 
of regeneration, no efficient Saviour to give hope — 
solid and substantial hope — to our alien and ailing 
race. 

It is pitiable to observe how the human soul has 
ever been crying out with Moab's king, " Wherewith 
shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before 

the fall of man, the result of which is the imperfection of the present 
world ; and if the goal of completion which God set before the 
world shall still be reached, then it needs an intervention of God, a 
restoration, a redemption by miracle." — Uhlhorn's Representations 
of the Life of Jesus, Disc. iv. 



152 RIGHT LIFE. 



the High God ? Shall I come before Him with 
burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ? Will the 
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten 
thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first- 
born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for 
the sin of my soul ?" And how still more pitiable 
and sad are the conflicting answers which the un- 
aided mind of man has given and accepted ! " One 
man aims at deliverance from sin by means of a 
bath ; another thinks to purify his heart by the aid 
of an emetic ; here another sets prayer-mills in mo- 
tion at the caprice of the wind; another pours out 
libations of wine or tea, sheds human blood, or offers 
his only child, as the most acceptable sacrifice. Here 
a man cannot rest until he has accomplished san- 
guinary vengeance on the manslayer ; there a fanat- 
ical Mussulman seeks to purchase Paradise for him- 
self by the number of Christians he can destroy." * 
And so the sickening list runs on almost without 
end, while yet there is no assurance for the soul — 
nothing to give confidence that any or all of these 
can serve to atone for sin, to propitiate Deity, or to 
remove the felt condemnation and distressing dis- 
ability. We must have some word, some movement, 
some effectual coming forth of supernatural light 
and power, some revelation from almighty God, or 

* Christlieb's Modern Doubt, p. "^bd. 



REASON AND RE VELA TION I 5 3 

there is nothing left for man but to gather himself 
up in agony to die. 

Thus, then, by the irrepressible and inextinguish- 
able yearnings of the human spirit after some super- 
nal almightiness ; by the dark uncertainties and 
clashing contradictions in mere human reasonings 
respecting Deity ; by the restless cravings of man's 
soul for some supreme object of faith and worship ; 
by all the unauthorized and often unhallowed devo- 
tions and questionable means of man's devising to 
please God and secure His favors ; by the ever-abid- 
ing need of adequate confirmation to render the 
teachings of reason effective, to make us sure where 
the powers of reason are uncertain, and to give man 
hope where reason is totally at a loss ; and by all 
the immeasurable need to give us confidence in view 
of eternal judgment, to bring us consolation and 
comfort amid the inevitable trials and miseries of 
earthly life, and to afford us some gracious outlook 
beyond the deathbed and the grave ; — by all these 
weighty and ever-pressing considerations I assume 
the unspeakable desirableness of a revelation from 
God, and argue its undeniable necessity to the 
proper well-being of man. 

But some object and say that revelation means 
miracle^ and that miracle is always questionable if 
not impossible. Of course revelation means miracle; 



154 RIGHT LIFE. 



that is, some movement or act of God additional to 
and above the present ordinary plane of things — 
the initial symptom of a superior administration by 
which a lower order is transcended by a higher. It 
has been rightly said that miracle is no more contrary 
to Nature than ordinary phenomena. It is something 
in addition to what we know of Nature — the intro- 
duction of a higher element of power which we do 
not see into a lower element which we do see.* 
What is ordinarily urged against the credibility of 
miracle is totally without foundation in reason, as 
can now be readily shown. 

Revelation involves the miraculous, because it 
initiates something additional to the standpoint of 
ordinary present observation and experience, but 
there is nothing in that to show it at all contrary to 
Nature considered with reference to the higher 
sphere to which the miracle belongs and which the 
miracle introduces. Science proves that the whole 
visible universe is of the nature of a building, 
in which stage has followed stage, step by step. 
First in the scale was dead matter; then matter 
moved by that inscrutable thing called force ; then 
a sort of prophecy oi life in the processes of crys- 
talHzation ; then the life of vegetation ; then the freer 
sentient life of animals; then rational and moral life, 
* Moore's The A^c aiuUhc Gos/cf, p. 38. 



REASON AND RE VELA TION I 5 5 

conscious of its own consciousness in humanity ; and 
next, as the final order toward which the whole op- 
eration was moving from the beginning, the culmi- 
nation of humanity in the Son of man, having and 
dispensing life eternal. In each of these several 
stages there was something added to and above 
what had existed previously ; and every beginning 
of such addition or of the process of ascending from 
the lower to the higher was miracle to the plane of 
experience which preceded. Force is a miracle from 
the standpoint of dead matter; crystallization is a 
miracle from the standpoint of mere force ; vegeta- 
tion is a miracle from the standpoint of crystalliza- 
tion ; the introduction of animal life is a miracle 
from the standpoint of vegetation ; and the bringing 
in of humanity is a miracle from the standpoint of 
the mere animal kingdom. But these several mira- 
cles in their successive order were not contrary to 
Nature. There was as much of Nature in one as the 
other, and just as much in the ordinary condition 
and experience of the lower plane to exclude the 
possibility of the incoming addition of the higher as 
there is in the condition and experience of ordinary 
humanity to exclude the possibility of the miracles 
pertaining to the introduction of a still more exalted 
order of man and Nature, begun in and through the 
Son of man, and ultimately to be realized in the new 



156 RIGHT LIFE. 



heaven and the new earth, toward which all divine 
miracles are looking, and of which they are the 
beginnings and symptoms. All sacred miracles 
throughout are only the manifestations of the in- 
coming of further additions to the grand edifice, in 
the full establishment of which the present excep- 
tional will likewise become normal, and lose that 
relative character which renders them miraculous to 
the plane of present ordinary observation and expe- 
rience. And when we take in the grand fact that 
almighty God is the Architect of the whole edifice, 
and that each step or stage is the product of His 
sovereign power, gradually working out His own 
unaltering purpose, it becomes ridiculous to think 
that, having made one miraculous addition after an- 
other in the past, He cannot also lay the cap-stone, 
whatever that may involve.* 

A miracle, if it be one, is simply a fact, as certain 
presentations in Nature are facts ; and reason be- 
comes unreason when it proposes to determine the 
reality of facts by foregone conclusions. Facts are 

* Theodore Parker, a bitter rejecter of the miracles recorded in the 
Scriptures, does not at all question the possibility of miracles. He 
says : " I think miracles are entirely possible. I think God can mani- 
fest Himself in a thousand ways that He never did reveal Himself 
in, and I can't say that He won't to-morrow." — Life and Correspond- 
ence, vol. i. p. 47. 

Even Rousseau has said: "The question whether God can work 
miracles, seriously treated, would be impious if it were not absurd." 



REASON AND REVELATION. 1 57 

ascertainable as facts, and must rest on their own 
independent evidence, apart from any preceding rea- 
sonings or conclusions of man's philosophy. One 
fact is able to overturn all the opposing philosophy 
in the world, for philosophy is nothing if it is not 
conditioned to fact. Philosophy must always yield 
to fact, and not fact to philosophy. All logic goes 
to pieces against fact. And the question concerning 
miracle is simply a question oi fact ; and if it can 
be established as a matter of fact, it must stand, and 
all the philosophy to the contrary must go over- 
board.* 

* "An a priori rejection of the miraculous is unphilosophical. It 
is absurd to attempt ' the settlement of historic problems by philo- 
sophic categories.' The credibility of miracles is in each instance 
simply and solely a question of evidence." . . . "The supposed re- 
condite formula of Hume, that it is more probable that testimony 
should be mistaken than that miracles should be true, is in fact a ?i^a.- 
^QXii petitio principii used to support a wholly unphilosophical asser- 
tion. If no amount of evidence can establish the supernatural, we 
ask in amazement on what is it philosophically based. Does it rest 
on anything higher than the idle habit of mind induced by the ob- 
servation of constant recurrences? Even were the induction on 
which it is founded an exhaustive one, so far from producing any 
conviction it would, as Bishop Butler pointed out more than one 
hundred years ago, merely prove the commonplace truism that it is 
probable that things should continue as they are except in cases in 
which there is reason to think that they will be changed. . . . When 
the inductive process is thus used to deny the possibility of miracles, 
it is abused in identically the same way that an inhabitant of the 
Great Sahara might abuse it to deny the reality of snow, or as the 
French Academy actually did abuse it to deny the existence of me- 
teorites. A comet moving in a hyperbolic orbit may have been vis- 



158 RIGHT LIFE. 



Nor do I have the least hesitation in asserting that 
miracle is a matter of fact. Nay, we may safely 
challenge all the wit and wisdom of man to show us 
anything which does not involve miracle. It cannot 
be shown that anything is, without some act or move- 
ment of God additional to and above the ordinary 
operations of Nature. Even these very operations 
of Nature could not start themselves, and hence evi- 
dence the presence of miracle somewhere at some 
point. The universe is a miracle ; matter is a mir- 
acle ; mind is a miracle ; life is a miracle ; man is a 
miracle ; and nothing is without miracle in the sense 
which I have defined. 

Nor is miracle so strange a thing as many are 
prone to regard it. It is often only the occasional 
doing in some unusual way what is constantly being 
done on vastly grander scales in the ordinary and 
established course of things. Men wonder that a 
dry rod in the hand of Moses should be transformed 
into a living serpent, and doubt the possibility of it, 

ible but once in a million of years ; would it therefore be philosophical 
to deny the possibility ? No. It has been unanswerably said that 
* the inductive principle in its very nature is only an expectation. It 
is as radically incompetent to pronounce a universal proposition as 
the taste or smell is to decide on matters of sight.' " — Farrar's Wit- 
ness of History to Christy pp. 25, 26, 51. 

"To speak plainly, whoever denies miracles has no God. His 
God is a dead word, a name, for his God stands in no living relation 
to the world." — Uhlhorn. 



REASON AND RE VELA TION. 1 5 9 

while dead matter all around them is perpetually 
being quickened into ten thousand forms of liv- 
ing and moving things. They wonder at what 
was wrought in connection with Israel's creation 
into a nation, and doubt the truth of the accounts, 
while every day and every year are showing more 
marvels than all the miracles of Moses, and which 
if seen but once in an age would furnish far greater 
reason to think them impossible. People quibble at 
the story of Cana, when " the modest water saw its 
God and blushed," yet take it all as a matter of 
course when that same God multitudinously repeats 
the same thing every summer in every vineyard and 
ripening cluster. Men shake their heads in unbelief 
when told of the restoration to life of dead and 
putrefying bodies, and yet evince neither skepticism 
nor wonder at the like going on under their own 
eyes and in their very selves. Was it less a miracle 
that man should be brought from dead non-existence 
than that, having died, he should be again restored to 
life ? The dead dust is raised up from beneath our 
feet to live and move in our limbs and to pulsate in 
our hearts ; the cold and lifeless metals take vitality 
in our life-blood ; the clods of the field are trans- 
muted into brains that give forth " thoughts that 
breathe and words that burn ;" and yet people talk 
about the impossibility of miracles, as if the infinite 



l60 RIGHT LIFE. 



God, who is perpetually working these wonders in 
Nature, had so exhausted His powers and disabled 
His almightiness as never more to be competent to 
the same operations in other ways ! Shame on such 
stupid inconsistency ! 

And how could God be God and the beneficent 
Being that He is, and allow the noblest of His earthly 
creatures to grovel in darkness, uncertainty, or de- 
grading superstition, as they ever must without 
some clear word from Him, without intent or ability 
on His part to supply the distressing need? He has 
not thus mocked us in any other necessity of our 
nature. He has permitted no thirst or appetite or 
want or craving to come to us without providing 
along with it the means of meeting and satisfying 
it. Even the hart does not pant for the water- 
springs in vain. How, then, can it be that in this 
deepest and most important outcry of our being He 
has so bound up His infinite and eternal Godhead 
that He cannot render us the requisite help and re- 
lief even if He would ? The very need for a revela- 
tion is itself proof enough that Jehovah has not put 
the making of it beyond His reach or ours. Right 
reason cannot otherwise than expect it. 

On the other hand, if God has not spoken to man 
nor given a revelation of Himself, then lot it be 
proven that He has not. Let it be shown to dem- 



REASON AND REVELATION l6l 

onstration that revelation is a lie ; for in such a case 
it would be unreason to rest satisfied that all the 
world is wrong without the most cogent and con- 
clusive proofs to that effect. No such proofs have 
been given or can be given. None of the great 
books on Christian evidences have ever been 
answered. Objections to revelation are no evi- 
dences against it. Anything may be objected to. 
A blind man may doubt the existence of the sun or 
the reality of color, but that is nothing to the dis- 
credit of either. Infidelity throughout is mere 
objection, often resting on a moral averseness, rath- 
er than argument or proof. If revelation be a false- 
hood, let the falsity be shown ; and until that falsity 
is proven it is asking too much of reason to have it 
assume the falsity on the plea of waiting to be con- 
vinced. The presumptions of sound reason and of 
common sense are all against the objector, and the 
presumptions of reason and common sense must, in 
reason, stand until the contrary is demonstrated. 

Nevertheless, Christianity challenges the closest 
examination. It asks no blind submission to its 
presentations. It comes to man with the calm and 
unquailing consciousness of invincible truth, for 
which no investigation can be too searching, no ra- 
tional argument too manly, close, and free. It pre- 
supposes that those who intelligently accept it are 
11 



1 62 RIGHT LIFE. 



" ready always to give an answer to every man that 
asketh a reason of the hope that is in them." And 
that God has spoken to man for his spiritual enlight- 
enment and guidance can be abundantly proven, even 
to demonstration, as I propose to show in the lec- 
tures which are to follow. And may He who at the 
first did teach the hearts of His faithful people by 
sending to them the light of His Holy Spirit, grant 
us, by the same Spirit, to have a right judgment in 
all things, and evermore to rejoice in His holy com- 
fort! 



LECTURE SIXTH. 

J^ebelation Jiemonstratetr. 

Heb. I : I, 2: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, 
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last 
days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed ]..eir of 
all things, by whom also He made the woi'lds. 

ALL reasoning against the possibility of super- 
^ natural revelation must necessarily fall back 
upon the forlorn assumption that there is no God ; 
for to a free and all-commanding Being, such as God 
is if He be God, nothing is impossible except what 
involves self-contradiction. Revelation is simply a 
corollary of the divine existence. The sun cannot 
be without shining, and God cannot be without 
showing that He is wherever there are intelligences 
to cognize the manifestations of His eternal power 
and Godhead. How should He who is infinite life 
and energy be devoid of motion ? or He who is in- 
finite light and love remain for ever silent ? It is not 
revelation, but the absence of revelation, that in such 
a case would be the wonder and the inconsistency. 
Even the most ignorant and diminutive atheists, who 

163 



164 RIGHT LIFE. 



class themselves in nature and destiny with dogs and 
asses, cannot pass their httle existence without be- 
coming demonstrative and blatant as to what is in 
their minds and hearts ; and how can there be an 
eternal God, infinite in power, intelligence, and good- 
ness, living through all infinitude, and the nearest of 
all things to the rational and moral creatures He has 
made, without ever letting it be known to them that 
He is, what He is, what He thinks, or what are His 
great purposes and wishes respecting them ? 

But the momentous question is not to be settled 
by foregone conclusions. If God has spoken to 
man. His having spoken is a matter oi fact, to be 
ascertained the same as any other fact. The fact 
being established, all reasonings about the impossi- 
bility of it must go for mere gabble and nonsense, 
for the fact demonstrates its own possibility, and 
leaves no room for further question on that point. 

The text cites it as actual fact that God hath 
spoken to man " at sundry times and in divers man- 
ners." Is this true ? or is it a mere assumption and 
a falsehood? We claim that it is true, and that 
there is abundant evidence to prove the assertion. 

The Christian believes in two creations : the orig- 
inal creation of all things, which, as respects this 
world, has been spoiled and damaged b)' sin ; and a 
new creation by Christ Jesus, begun now in the re- 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. 1 65 

ncwal of the spiritual nature of all genuine believers, 
and intended to be carried out in the resurrection of 
the body and " the restitution of all things." And 
by the records of these two creations it can be logic- 
ally demonstrated that supernatural revelation is a 
thing of fact, an actual reality. 

In the present lecture I will confine myself to the 
first of these — the original creation of all things, the 
completest account of which we have in the first 
chapter of the book of Genesis, which is the sub- 
limest and most dignified piece of composition, both 
as to contents and style, ever written in any language 
in any period of the world's known history. 

I do not say by whom that chapter was written, 
whether by one man or elaborated out of what dif- 
ferent authors at different times may have put upon 
record or otherwise transmitted. That does not 
matter in the least in relation to the purposes for 
which I now cite it. I simply allege the fact that it 
stands written, and that it belongs to the existing 
literature of mankind for every one to look at and 
examine. There it is, constituting the beginning of 
every unmutilated Bible, a copy of which any one 
can easily procure and possess and read at his or her 
leisure. There it is, just in the form in which it has 
stood as far back in time as there has been anything 
of our Bible. 



66 RIGHT LIFE. 



We know that this Record existed in the time of 
Christ and His disciples, not only in the original 
Hebrew, but also in a Greek translation which dates 
back more than two hundred and fifty years before 
Christ, having been made by order of an Egyptian 
king, Ptolemy Lagi, to enrich the great Alexandrian 
Library. We know that the Jews had it in their lan- 
guage at their return from the Babylonian Captivity 
in the time of Cyrus. We know also that they pos- 
sessed it for the whole period of their national his- 
tory preceding that time, for it was a vital part of 
the books containing the law of their entire civil- 
ization, which books they always referred to Moses, 
their ever-honored lawgiver. 

Moses lived about fifteen hundred years before 
Christ, but does not claim that this account was at 
all original with him. The fact is now demonstrated 
that substantially the same account, though in some- 
what less purity, existed at least five hundred years 
before Moses. 

Within the last half century the ruins of ancient 
Chaldea and Assyria have yielded up some remark- 
able remains, among which arc numerous fragments 
of a library consisting of clay tablets. One series 
of these tablets contains an account of the creation 
substantially the same as contained in our Bible. 
These tablets tell their own stor\' — tluit thc\- were 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. 1 6/ 

made to preserve the old Accadian literature, in- 
cluding this history of the creation among the rest, 
which Sargon I., two thousand years before Christ, 
caused to be copied and translated, and which, ac- 
cording to Rawlinson, must date back more than 
twenty-five hundred years before Christ. 

Berosus also gives an account of the beliefs of the 
ancient Chaldeans concerning the creation, which in 
substance comprises the same things contained in 
Genesis and in the tablets, and which, Rawlinson 
says, " is not only archaic, but in its groundwork 
and essence a primeval tradition more ancient prob- 
ably than the most of the Chaldean gods." 

The same, in more or less integrity, is to be found 
in the traditions and sacred beliefs of all the prim- 
itive nations of whom we have any knowledge. 

We are thus made sure that this account of the 
creation, at least in its main features, goes back to 
one original source, when the various peoples of the 
earth were yet together in one community, and 
hence must have existed in the time of Noah. 

We have, then, coeval with the history of man 
since the Flood a recorded account professing, and 
sacredly believed, to be an authentic account of the 
original creation of all things. The question then 
arises, *Is that account, in its purest, fullest, and 
best-preserved text, true or not ? Nor are we 



1 68 RIGHT LIFE. 



without important light for the determination of 
this question. 

The science of geology, which one hundred years 
ago had not yet attained the rank of a science, has 
of late made some wonderful strides toward ascer- 
taining how the universe and our world were orig- 
inally formed and the earth peopled with its various 
inhabitants. By the aid of astronomy, physics, and 
chemistry, and the results achieved by the telescope, 
the spectroscope, and the laboratory, our advanced 
philosophers claim and assert that the earliest forma- 
tive period of the earth is becoming more and more 
definite and intelligible, and that we are now able to 
form some approximate idea of the manner in which 
the physical universe came to be as it is. The claim 
may be a little in advance of what ascertained facts 
would warrant, and investigators are not yet quite 
agreed upon all their conclusions ; but much has 
been made credibly clear, and the general inferences 
resting thereon are so plausible that we may take 
them as fair approaches toward the truth, which a 
wider induction of facts may more conclusively 
establish and explain. 

What, then, has the science of geology and its re- 
lated sciences to teach us in reference to tlie forma- 
tion of the universe ? and how for do those teachings 
harmonize with the sacred Record ? 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. 1 69 

In the nature of the case geological science can 
tell us nothing of the condition of things prior to 
their first motion toward forms, organizations, worlds, 
and systems. All that it can say of that remote be- 
ginning is that there was inchoate matter and mo- 
tion, and that according to the so-called nebular 
theory — which is now generally accepted by the 
most approved scientists, whether believers or un- 
believers — it is " in the highest degree probable " 
that all the members of our solar system have had a 
common origin out of a common nebulous mass, 
and that all the stars and systems of the material 
universe received their births and forms from rents, 
motions, and chemical interactions in one original 
and immeasurable ocean of nebulous matter diffused 
through space. 

I do not stop to give the explanations which the 
holders of this theory advance. I merely take it as 
they give it. But I find in it just what the first sen- 
tence in the Record says. 

Both science and the Record agree in giving the 
universe as one, though made up of many parts. 
The Record says : " In the beginning God created 
the heavens [plural] and the earth ;" and " the heav- 
ens and the earth," in the ancient diction, mean the 
universe, the whole concatenation of worlds. 

Science and the Record likewise agree touching 



I/O RIGHT LIFE. 



the primordial condition of the universe. Some 
have taken the first verse of Genesis as an independ- 
ent statement of the whole act of God by which all 
things were brought into completed existence, and 
treat it as simply the preface or summation of what 
is subsequently given in detail. This may be partly 
right, but the chief force of the description falls 
upon an original stage of the great creation-work — 
namely, the bringing into being of the undefined 
elements out of which the subsequently completed 
heavens and earth were formed. Some find this sig- 
nified in the Hebrew particle etJi, which is assigned 
no meaning in our English translations, and claim 
that the passage may be legitimately rendered : " In 
the beginning God created toward the heavens and 
the earth ;" that is, called into being the original ele- 
ments of them, putting them in process of becoming 
what they afterward became. The word created, as 
distinguished from the word made in the after parts 
of the narrative, would well bear out this idea, as the 
creation of the elements is one thing, and the mak- 
ing or forming of them into definitive shapes and 
conditions is quite a different thing. The condition 
of the earth, as described in the second verse, would 
also imply that the creative act of the first verse still 
left the worlds hi a state of becoDiiug, but needing to 
be wrought into defined elements, consistency, and 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. I7I 

form. And in this view of the case the Record an- 
swers exactly to what science now accepts as the 
primordial history of the formation of the universe. 

In this process of world-formation from original 
nebulous matter some portions of the separating 
and forming masses, from difference in size and other 
causes, would reach a condition of order and habit- 
ableness long in advance of others, and some sys- 
tems and portions of systems would be in a state of 
defined worlds while others were yet in the toils of 
the primordial nebulosity and confusion. Science 
thinks it has abundant evidence that some worlds 
are still in processes which others passed through long 
ages ago. And this also is the natural implication 
of the Record. 

How long it was from the time these separating 
and formative processes began to the time in which 
our earth appeared as a distinct orb in our solar sys- 
tem, no one can begin to tell. It may have been 
ages of ages as we now count. Science claims that 
it must have been millions on millions of years. 
But, whatever length of time was required, there is 
ample room for it in the gap between the statement 
in the first verse and that in the second ; so that the 
Record on this point amply responds to what science 
has been led to conclude. 

It is now also put forth as scientifically proven 



1/2 RIGHT LIFE. 



that the original condition of the earth, after becom- 
ing detached and rolled into a distinct mass to itself, 
was that of a dark, fluid, gaseous mist, in which all 
its elements were confusedly held. And this, again, 
is precisely what is affirmed in the second verse of 
the Record, which says : " The earth was without 
form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of 
the deep." 

This tohu va bohu, darkness and deep, of the He- 
brew version is correspondingly explained in other 
ancient versions. The Babylonian, according to 
Berosus, says : " There existed nothing but dark- 
ness and an abyss of waters." According to the 
tablets, "The chaos of waters gave birth to all." 
The Egyptian version says : " There was a vast abyss 
enveloped in boundless darkness." The Phoenician 
says : " All was a dark windy air and an unbroken 
dark chaos." The Indian, according to Max Miiller, 
says that the like of it has not been since ; darkness 
covered all in gloom profound, and the whole was a 
vast ocean without light. Ovid among the ancient 
poets, and Milton among the modern, have poeti- 
cally enlarged upon the Record, and spoken of the 
presentation as a scene of confused desolation — 

"A (Inrk 
Illimitable ocean, without bound, 
Without dimensions, where length, breadth, and height, 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. 1/3 

And time, and place, are lost ; where eldest Night 

And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, held 

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise 

Of endless wars, and by confusion stood, 

For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, 

Strove here for mastery, and to battle brought 

Their embryon atoms." 

And this " formless, void, dark, deep " of confused 
fluid matter, rolling in a vast undefined mass, as de- 
scribed in the Record, answers precisely to the theory 
which the latest and best science now puts forth as 
the truth in the case. 

Another particular which science now affirms with 
reference to the formation of the earth is, that in the 
course of the turmoil and confusion of this vast 
mass of warring embryonic atoms the whole extent 
of it became so heated as to become one scene of 
burning fire, such as now exists over the face of the 
sun. Thus it is said that " the first clear view which 
we obtain of the early condition of the earth pre- 
sents to us a ball of matter fluid with intense heat, 
spinning on its own axis and revolving around the 
sun." 

A world of fire means the presence of light, just 
as we have light from the burning face of the sun, 
but light independent of the sun. And this answers 
a^^ain with wonderful satisfactoriness to the third 



174 RIGHT LIFE. 



verse of the Record, where it is written : " God said, 
Let light be ; and Hght was " — Hght wholly separate 
and apart from the light of the sun, which did not 
reach the earth until long ages afterward, when the 
earth's own light had ceased to shine and " its sur- 
face became cooled and hardened and capable of 
sustaining organized existences." 

Again, science teaches that while the earth was a 
mass of fiery burning " the water which now en- 
wraps a large portion of the face of the globe must 
for ages have existed only in the shape of steam, 
floating above and enveloping the planet in one 
thick curtain of mist." Such vast expanse of heavy 
mist condensing on the outside in ever-pouring rains 
means a dark envelope surrounding the light of the 
burning globe. Here, then, was a division between 
the darkness and the light, just as stated in the 
Record. And as the unbroken dark chaos, by con- 
densation and intense molecular activity, issued in 
incandescent light, there was completed what the 
Record calls " the first day," made up of an evening 
and a morning long ages before the sun was made 
the ruler of the day and the moon the ruler of the 
night, and before day and night were at all measured 
by the earth's revolutions on its own axis.* 



* The days as tliey succeed cacli other in llio Apocalyi-ise of the 
creation-work are plainly not at all to he taken as ordinary days of 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. 1/5 

As to the formation of the aerial and ethereal 
" expanse," the condensation of the steamy vapors 
into waters, and the separation between the waters 
upheld in the expanse above and those precipitated 
upon the surface of the cooling globe, science has 
not yet been able to give us much that is definite ; 
but as far as it has reached any conclusions they all 
are in accord with what stands written in the Record 
concerning the second day. 

Science teaches that the elements of the earth ap- 
peared in a certain order, beginning with water, then 
metals and metalloids, and then compounds as we 
now find them. And so it is stated in the written 
Record. After the subsidence of the intense heat 
and fire, the dissociations, condensations, precipita- 
tions, and atomic unions which followed gave first a 
globe of universal waters covering the hardenings 
at the bottom. The intense heat and fire toward the 
centre of the earth, which continue in measure to 

twenty-four hours, except as the seer may have beheld so much on 
so many successive natural days. In Genesis chap. 2:4, 5 the 
vi^hole work of the " six days " is spoken of as one day — " the day 
that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant 
of the field, and every herb," etc. l^he days of the creation-work 
are simply the ti??ies of the different successive stages in the creative 
processes. Luthardt well remarks that the " days " may be regarded 
as a form in which the subject is clothed for the sake of bringing it 
nearer to the human imagination, which could not otherwise so well 
grasp the several progressive acts in the tremendous work. 



176 RIGHT LIFE. 



the present day, confined and pressed by the tight- 
ening of the cooling crust and superincumbent mass 
of waters, would here and there break forth in im- 
measurable violence, displacing the regular surface, 
heaving up ridges, mountains, and continents, and 
causing immense depressions in other parts ; so that, 
as the Record says, the waters not held in suspense 
by the air were gathered together in the depressions, 
forming oceans and seas, and leaving the upheaved 
projections dry and solid, with their metals, metal- 
loids, and various compounds as formed partly by 
fire and partly by water. 

Unnumbered ages doubtless passed while these 
processes were going on, during which the whole 
configuration of the surface of the earth was repeat- 
edly changed, so that what was at one time ocean- 
bed at another time became the highest part of the 
dry land, giving one kind of rocky formations at one 
period, and other kinds at another period, while the 
contraction of the earth in the gradual cooling of its 
surface continued to push up mountainous ridges 
along the weaker places and seams. So science 
maintains, and it is simply a proximate filling out 
of the terms of the written Record. 

Along with and following this condensation of the 
hot vapors into waters, the gathering of those waters 
into indentations of the earth's surface, and the grad- 



RE VELA TION DEMONS TRA TED. I / / 

ual clearing of the atmosphere of the steam and thick 
cloudiness, the lis^ht of the sun, moon, and stars 
would more and more penetrate toward the surface 
of the earth, exerting its influence upon it from 
above, and helping to various other changes. Not 
until then, however, could the light of the heavenly 
bodies at all reach the earth, because of the vast 
oceans of steaming cloud and vapor which lay 
between the earth and them on all sides. Even 
when the light of the heavenly bodies began to 
pierce the dark sheath of the earth, it must have 
been only a feeble and weird sort of light, a mere 
lambent shimmer now and then, as indefinite and 
dimly pulsating as the aurora of the northern 
heavens. And it was only after the lapse of long 
ages that the sun in his full-orbed glory broke 
through the mist and clouds, and the moon showed 
her silver sheen in her silent march around the 
world. So science teaches, and so the written 
Record states the facts to have been. 

Again, according to the best results of scientific 
observation, there was no life of any sort in sea or 
on land until the earth approached that condition in 
which the light of the heavenly bodies began to 
penetrate through its heavy mists. And just as 
observation proves, so is the clear implication of the 
ancient written Record. 

12 



178 RIGHT LIFE. 



If geology has established anything, it has made 
known to us a clear gradation of the various kinds 
of life and the successiveness of their appearance on 
the earth. There may yet be some mistakes in the 
enumerations and ages of the rocky formations, for 
the theories of geologists have shown a remarkable 
capacity for overthrowing each other ; but a largely- 
accepted understanding has for the most part been 
reached. From this order in the rock-strata, and 
what is found imbedded in them or impressed upon 
them in the course of their formation, it is regarded 
as proven that the earth was many successive ages 
in the process of becoming what it is ; that there 
were immense eras from the original start in which 
there was no organized life of any sort on our planet; 
and that a certain order of succession has marked 
the appearance of the various orders of living forms. 

It is admitted that vegetative life began first, and 
that animal life began afterward ; that all the first 
forms of life were aquatic, and that the air and land 
were peopled at a later period ; that the invertebrate 
creatures came before the vertebrates, and the rep- 
tilian before the more highly organized mammals ; 
and that as rudimentary plants, mosses, seaweeds, 
worms, and small shellfishes began the kingdom of 
life upon earth, so there was a gradual adding to it, 
rising ever higher in the scale from the lower to the 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. 1 79 



higher, until the whole was finally crowned with the 
appearance of man, at once the youngest and the 
sublimest of all sublunary creatures. 

But this, again, conforms with singular exactness 
to the order given in the written Record. We have 
only to glance at the description to observe the suc- 
cession : first, vegetation ; then life in and from the 
waters ; then land animals, cattle, and beasts of the 
earth ; then man as the last creation.* 

* Premier W. E. Gladstone, writing on this subject, says : " Look- 
ing largely at the latter portion of the narrative, which describes the 
creation of living organisms, and waiving details, on some of which 
(as in V. 24) the Septuagint seems to vary from the Hebrew, there is 
a grand fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times, 
as follows : 

" I. The water-population; 

" 2. The air-population ; 

" 3. The land-population of animals ; 

" 4. The land-population consummated in man. 
" Now, this same fourfold order is understood to have been so 
affirmed in our time by natural science that it may be taken as a 
demonstrated conclusion and established fact." — Article in The Nine- 
teenth Century for Nov., 1885. 

Mr. T. H. Huxley, in a later number of the same publication, with 
evident intent, if possible, to fault the written Record, replies to Mr. 
Gladstone, and tries to prove the great premier somewhat ignorant 
and mistaken as to the results of scientific exploration. He gives a 
table of his own to indicate how the present results of science stand 
on the question ; but his table, with the exception of an assertion or 
two of his own, agrees essentially with Mr. Gladstone's statement. 
The only great point of dissent is, that twelve months ago somebody 
discovered a solitary hornefs wing in Silurian rocks, and that within 
the last two years something like scorpions were found in the Up])er 
Silurian strata, and that hence the Record is mistaken in placing the 



l80 RIGHT LIFE, 



The written Record makes a special point of it 
that long before the creation of man " God created 
tanniinml' which our translators have interpreted to 
mean " great whales " or " sea-monsters," but which 
more literally means stretched-out or long- extended 
ones — monstrous crawlers to wriggle through the 
waters, scud along the shores, or drag their vast 
lengths in ponderous ugliness amid the estuaries 
and lagoons. But in this particular also the writer 
anticipated the explorer. In Europe, Australia, 
Asia, and America fossils of just such gigantic crea- 

creation of " fowls " and land animals no farther back than the Devo- 
nian Epoch (!). 

" The Bible teaches us that the world was formed in a gradually 
ascending series, advancing from the general to the special, from the 
imperfect to the perfect, from the unfree to the free, making ever 
nearer approximation toward man, till it reached in him the end and 
climax of its formations. This, too, is a fact of religious importance, 
as manifesting that man, as the end of God's creation, was also God's 
peculiar and last, and therefore his first thought — that God had 
throughout respect to man, and to his relation thereto. Of this, as a 
purely religious matter, science neither knows nor can know any- 
thing; but science confirms in the most striking manner the premiss 
on which this conclusion rests — viz., the gradual advance made in 
the forms of organic life toward humanity; and in proj)ortion to the 
increase of her investigations is the increase of this confirmation. 
"When Scripture says that the earth was first covered with water, and 
describes the hills and dry land as then arising, and as subsequently 
covered with vegetation; tells us that the waters were filleil with 
fishes and the air with birds, and that land animals followed, and 
that the act of creation concluded with man, — this is, in broad features 
and general outlines, the same process of development which geo- 
logic investigations disclose." — Lulhardt, pp. 95, 96, 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. l8l 

tures have been dug up, from thirty to fifty and more 
feet long, most of which seem to have ceased to hve 
before Adam was made. Geologists call them by 
names almost as hard, uncouth, and long, in pro- 
portion, as these creatures themselves, but they have 
abundantly demonstrated the truth of the Record 
concerning their past existence, and nearly every 
museum of natural history contains skeletons of 
some of them. 

Thus, then, in ten or a dozen particulars, embra- 
cing all the vital features and chief characteristics of 
the whole original creation, according to the very 
best results of scientific research and knowledge, 
the written Record is invincibly true — true in the 
profoundest particulars, which no science of man 
could know or guess until within the lifetime of men 
now living — accurately true to all that the maturest 
science has ascertained by its own independent pro- 
cesses ; while there remains a fulness of statement in 
the written Record which science as yet has not 
been able to reach or explore. All this is fact, tan- 
gible fact, which every one may see and know and 
ascertain for himself. 

Now, then, comes the question. How did the 
writers of this Record, in the far-distant ages of 
antiquity, get this knowledge of creation, its order 
and processes, by which the heavens and the earth 



1 82 RIGHT LIFE. 



came to be as they are, and the latter to be peopled 
in the order which they narrate ? No human being 
ever lived or could live through the periods de- 
scribed, nor has geology found any marks or re- 
mains of man until after vast ages on ages of the 
earth's formative and early history had passed away. 
It was not " a happy hit " in the wild dreams of the 
human imagination, for the facts are too numerous, 
too remote from all ordinary experience and sugges- 
tion, too transcendently wonderful in character, to 
be evolved and positively recorded as truth from the 
mere unguided fancy of men in the infancy of the 
race. Man could no more dream such a scheme of 
creation than he could dream the whole body of 
mathematical truth and write it all down in a book 
four thousand years ago. It was not ascertained 
after the manner that modern science has come to 
learn so much in regard to these matters ; for man's 
knowledge of the earth did not then extend over 
more than a fraction of its surface, did not at all 
penetrate into its depths, and did not apprehend its 
constituent strata, form, or motions. There were no 
brigades of observers in all the zones, islands, and 
hemispheres in communication with each other for 
the formation of a common fund of knowledge ; no 
telescopes, no spectroscopes, no chemical laboratories, 
no ideas of the great system to which our world be- 



I^E VEL A TION DEMONS TRA TED. 1 8 3 

longs ; no conceptions of the physical universe such 
as our later acre has made manifest. Where, then, 
did this wonderful creation-Record come from ? It 
is not history ; it is not science ; it is not myth ; yet 
science proves it to be truth. It is not fiction framed 
out of the discoveries and reasonings of modern 
science ; for it existed four thousand years before 
modern science was born. Where, then, did it come 
from ? Is there any other possible solution of the 
question but that the God of creation somehow 
showed or supernaturally revealed it to somebody 
whom He selected to be the recipient and writer of 
the wonderful Record ? It may have been Adam, it 
may have been Seth, it may have been Enoch, or it 
may have been Noah — and Noah I am inclined to 
think it was — to whom God gave an apocalypse of 
the beginning as he gave to John an apocalypse of 
the end. But to somebody it was given, and none 
but God could have given it ; for it stands written 
ever since the days of Noah ; and what is written is 
true as science itself is true.* 

* " I ask, How came the author of the first chapter of Genesis to 
know that order, or to possess knowledge which natural science has 
only within the present century for the first time dug out of the bowels 
of the earth ? It is surely impossible to avoid the conclusion — first, 
that either this writer was gifted with faculties passing all human ex- 
perience, or else his knowledge was divine. The first branch of the 
alternative is truly nominal and unreal. We know the sphere within 
which human inquiry toils. We know the heights to which the in- 



1 84 RIGHT LIFE. 



Here, then, I claim, is a demonstration of the 
reahty of supernatural revelation. It comes before 
us in a most ancient Record, which professes to be 
from God. It comes attested in every part by the 
best results of inductive and deductive science, so 
far as human reason has been able to penetrate into 
the origin of things. It comes as an accomplished 
fact, which no candid and well-informed mind can 
reasonably gainsay or avoid. And if any have been 
in doubt about the reality of supernatural revelation, 
I say to them. Here it is, a fact, demonstrated before 
your own eyes. Demolish it if you can. Other- 
wise you must admit that God hath spoken. 

And if this creation-history was from God, as it 
necessarily must have been, then all that it contains 

tuitions of genius may soar. Genius cannot escape from one inex- 
orable law : it must have materials of sense or experience to M'ork 
with; and genius can no more tell, apart from some at least of the 
results attained by inquiry, what are the contents of the crust of the 
earth than it could square the circle or annihilate a fact. So stands 
the plea for a revelation of truth from God." — Hon. Wm. E. Glad- 
stone in The Nineteenth Century, Nov., 1885. 

" We have shown that the remarkable record of creation generally 
ascribed to Moses harmonizes beautifully with the latest determina- 
tions of science, and must have been wholly unintelligil^le, save in 
its spirit and general purport, to former generations of men ; and we 
have indicated certain remarkable statements in this connection 
which prove that the author of this record had information vastly in 
advance of his nation or age, and which he could not have possessed 
except through miraculous communication." — \\\\\(A\v\W Science and 
Religion, p. 381. 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. 1 85 

must be true in every part. And if it be true in 
every part, then that most intense and pervading asser- 
tion reiterated all through it must be true, and there is 
a God, almighty Maker of heaven and earth, from 
whom are all things and to whom are all things. 
Nothing in all this Record is more clearly and 
positively affirmed than that ^'God created the heav- 
ens and the earth" — that ''the Spirit of God'' was 
the Mover on the dark bosom of original chaos — 
that God called forth the light and divided it from 
the darkness — that ''God made the firmament and 
divided the waters " — that God caused the waters to 
be gathered into oceans and seas and the dry land to 
appear — that God caused the springing up of vege- 
table life — that God placed the light-bearers of the 
heavens to divide the day from the night, and to be 
for signs'and for seasons and for days and years, and 
made the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule 
the night — that God caused the waters to bring forth 
the abundance of the creeping things, the fowls that 
fly, the great outstretched monsters, and every living 
thing related to the waters — that God caused the 
earth to bring forth the land-animals, the creeping 
things that creep upon the earth, the beasts of the 
earth and all cattle — and that God created man in 
His own image, male and female, and gave them 
" dominion over the fish of the sea and over the 



1 86 RIGHT LIFE. 



fowl of the air and over every living thing that 
moveth upon the earth." 

And what an object of most adorable contempla- 
tion is thus brought to the knowledge of man ! A 
living and potent Being, higher than the heavens, 
before all things, creating all things, upholding all 
things, commanding all things, present with all 
things in all stages of their being, Himself the only 
self-existing, the eternal, the infinite, the almighty, 
whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain ! 

Such a revelation was worthy of such a God, and 
the making of it was a supreme moment in the his- 
tory of human existence. Here, in this one single 
chapter, there is more of divine knowledge conveyed 
for human instruction and enlightenment than all 
the reason of man in all the ages ever reached or 
could have reached. Here we are taught the maj- 
esty, the perfection, and the glory of Him to whom 
all things owe their being — that He is an infinite, 
holy, just, and good God — a God of wisdom and 
order as well as purity and truth, with absolute right 
to our obedience and love, and altogether worthy of 
our profoundest reverence and supreme regard. 
There never was, nor could there ever be, a divine 
revelation more transcendent than this, sa\-e the one 
which remains to be considered in another lecture ; 
and even that could scarcely have been and been 



REVELATION DEMONSTRATED. 1 8/ 

comprehensible without this. It is the whole reve- 
lation of God in Nature summed up and focused in 
a revelation of icw^^ additional to Nature, and throw- 
ing upon the human soul the intensest light outside 
of the incarnation of God's only Son. 

Shall we, then, accept this tremendous revelation, 
and walk by its light, and learn to worship and 
honor Him who made the heavens and the earth 
and the sea and all that in them is ? Or shall we 
turn our backs upon it and go groping all our days, 
not knowing whether we have had a Maker worthy 
of our regard, whether we are men or brutes, whether 
eternal wisdom or our own fitful lusts are to be the 
rule by which to direct our lives ? 

Dear friends, an awful moral responsibility is de- 
volved upon us by the presence of the sacred reve- 
lations given in the Creation Record. It preaches 
and testifies to an infinite, self-existent, almighty, 
eternal, ever-present, all-knowing, and all-pervading 
God ; and the knowledge of such a Being lays us 
under the profoundest obligations to reverence, fear, 
and adore Him. It preaches this God as our Cre- 
ator, the Author of our being and blessings, the Be- 
stowerofall the exalted characteristics by which our 
nature is distinguished ; and the knowledge of this 
fact imposes upon us invincible bonds ever to bear 



1 88 RIGHT LIFE. 



Him in most worshipful remembrance, to demean 
ourselves with all lovingness toward Him, and to 
rejoice in Him and glorify Him as our supremest 
good. It preaches this God as delighting in order, 
in having creatures to enjoy his goodness, and as 
caring for the humblest and lowliest forms of being 
as well as the greatest ; and these truths present the 
most cogent reasons why we should walk daily as in 
His presence and try to be like Him in the love of 
righteousness and in ministering to the happiness 
of all our fellow creatures. And with such a clear, 
momentous, and science-attested revelation of God 
before us, all right reason must side with the savine 
of Paul, that we are " ivitlioiit excuse " if we glorify 
Him not as God or fail in reverent and dutiful orrat- 

o 

itude to His most gracious majesty. 

There is still another and more marvellous dem- 
onstration of the reality of supernatural revela- 
tion ; but I cannot present it now. In the next 
lecture, God willing, I will take it up. Meanwhile, 
the sublime Creation Record stands as an ev^erlasting 
demonstration that God is God ; that He means that 
we should know, acknowledge, and enjoy Him ; and 
that to Him belongs all worship, glory, and dominion, 
world without end. 



LECTURE SEVENTH. 

i^ebelation jFurtljer Jiemonstratetr. 

John i : i8: No man hath seen God at any time; the only- 
begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him. 

THESE words refer to Christ as the Revealer 
and the Revelation of God, as the Scriptures 
throughout teach concerning Him. 

The New Testament is full of one Name, which it 
exalts " above every name." The several treatises 
are numerous, distinct, and from different hands, but 
each has for its object the setting forth, in one way 
or another, this one all-pervading Name. Whatever 
the special train or circle of thought, it either starts 
from or leads to the one subject, and is always found 
revolving around that one Name. And that Name is 
the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom I now propose 
to you as another transcendent demonstration of the 
reality of supernatural revelation. 

I have cited the Creation Record as an instance in 
which there has been a manifest showing from God 
which can in no other way be accounted for ; and I 

189 



IpO RIGHT LIFE. 



now cite the story of Jesus as a still clearer and 
more intensely significant supernatural interference 
of God, presenting facts much more difficult to be 
accounted for or explained than the Creation Record 
itself, except on the same admission. 

Let it be observed, then, that there really exists in 
the world, open to every one's inspection, a wonder- 
ful portrait of a being whom we call our Saviour. 
I do not now concern myself about the writers of 
the original accounts of Him. It is enough for my 
present purpose that a full-length portrait of Him 
exists ; that it dates back to within one hundred 
years from His alleged birth ; that it exists not only 
in the original documents of His first followers, but 
in all the confessions, liturgies, hymns, preaching, and 
teachings of the universal society called by His 
name and claiming to be founded by Him ; and that 
it is the central and all-comprehending thing in the 
widest-extended, the most intelligently accepted, 
and the most beneficently effective religion now on 
the face of the whole earth. Let it come from what 
source it may, the full-length picture of Jesus is now 
before the eyes of all the freest and most cultured 
peoples of the human family, and to-day enlists 
more interest, commands more hearts, awakens and 
holds more worshipful regard, and wields a sublimer 
potency over the thoughts and holiest aspirations of 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. I9I 

men, than anything that has ever been presented to 
human contemplation next after the idea of one, per- 
sonal, and infinite God. These are all palpable facts 
which no one in truth can deny. 

Now the presence of a picture or ideal of a single 
Person out of which has come the greatest moral 
revolution the world has ever seen, which is the 
essence and life of the vastest and most enduring 
empire that ever had place on this globe, and which 
at this moment commands the love and adoration of 
all the best portions of civilized man to the best satis- 
faction of the human soul, presents a problem which 
demands some adequate solution. Not to look at 
and handle the facts so as consistently to construe 
them is cowardice or imbecility. Not to come to 
some definite and tenable conclusions with regard 
to such an astounding presentation is to vacate our 
claims to rational intelligence and to ignore the most 
powerful wonder that human history records. We 
are therefore bound, as reasonable beings, to grapple 
with the subject and somehow explain and account 
for the amazing facts. And if they cannot be con- 
sistently explained on natural principles, we are 
bound to refer them to supernatural interference, 
and admit that revelation is a demonstrated reality. 

Some have ventured upon the theory that the story 
of Jesus is nothing but a myth, a fable, like the 



192 RIGHT LIFE. 



heathen stories of their imaginary gods. But where 
was there ever a myth that has had even the smallest 
moiety of the power and moral effect upon the heart 
and life of mankind that has been wrought, and is 
still being wrought, by this story of Jesus ? Even 
Renan declares that, "whatever may be the sur- 
prises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. 
His worship will grow young without ceasing ; His 
legend will call forth tears without end ; His suffer- 
ings will melt the noblest hearts ; all ages will pro- 
claim that among the sons of men there is none born 
greater than Jesus." * A myth possessed of such 
undying power is itself a miracle, and could not be 
but from God. 

If the story of Jesus is a human invention, some- 

* Quoted in Schaff's Christ and Oiristianity, p. 24. In the same 
place there is also a quotation from Lecky, the historian of Ration- 
alism and of European Morals from Attgtistus to Charlemagne, in 
these words respecting Christ : " The simple record of three short 
years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften man- 
kind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhorta- 
tions of the moralists." Also one from Strauss, in which that an- 
tagonist of the gospel history concedes that " Jesus represents within 
the sphere of religion the culminating point beyond which posterity 
can never go — yea, which it cannot even equal. . . . He remains 
the highest model of religion within the reach of thought, and no 
perfect piety is possible without His presence in the heart." Dr. 
Schafif himself says that the elfect wrought by Christ in human his- 
tory " overtovvers all other historic events, and throws the achieve- 
ments of heroes, sages, poets, scholars, and statesmen of ancient and 
modern times far into the shade." 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 1 93 

body must have invented it. But who could that 
somebody have been ? The Church could not have 
invented it, for it made the Church, and the Church 
from the beginning had it as the Alpha and Omega 
of its faith, its inspiration, and its hope. In all the 
rounds of history or of fiction there is nothing to 
compare with this story, or to show that it is at all 
within the power of human genius to soar halfway 
to anything like it. 

Men might say of a certain character that he was 
perfect, without sin, without error, a very image of 
divine excellence ; but when it comes to the details 
of the picture in actual life, in all possible situations, 
amidst the ever-varying changes, contrasts, and 
emergencies exhibited in the career and end of 
Jesus, it is simply impossible for them to avoid the 
introduction of features bearing the marks of their 
limited, erring, and sinful nature, and betraying the 
human origin of the story. But nothing of this sort 
any-where appears in the story of Jesus. It is of a 
piece from beginning to end, absolutely perfect be- 
yond any imaginable improvement from first to last, 
and beaming all over with light, instruction, good- 
ness, and a heavenly calm of wisdom and unexam- 
pled profession far transcending the loveliest visions 
of the poets and the noblest speculations of the 
philosophers. If it be an invention of man, the 

13 



194 RIGHT LIFE. 



man who did it must have exceeded all other men 
together in original genius, and could not have re- 
mained unknown to the world in which he lived. 
There have been some good things written the au- 
thors of which are unknown, but it has not been so 
with any of- the great works of genius, the greatest 
of which are only as rushlights to the sun in com- 
parison with the wonderful elaboration and gloiy of 
the picture of the Christ. Even as a mere ideal the 
story of Jesus is a miracle, and never could have 
been conceived, much less consistently elaborated 
as it is, except by inspiration of God. 

Professedly and historically, it is a Jewish story. 
Jesus was born and lived and died a Jew ; all His 
first followers were Jews, and all the original nar- 
rators of his history were Jews — Jews of the last 
period of the Jewish state. A narrower and more 
peculiarly marked people than the Jews of that time 
never lived. We have the writings of their greatest 
men of that age, and nothing could be higher above 
or wider apart from their thoughts, principles, actions, 
and type of character than this portraiture of Jesus. 
" Lovers of wrangling controv^ers}-, proposers of 
captious paradoxes, jealous upholders of their nation's 
exclusive privileges, zealous sticklers for the least 
comma of the law, and most sophistical departers 
from its spirit — the exact counterpart and reflection 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 1 95 

of those scribes and Pharisees who are so uncom- 
promisingly reproved as the very contradiction of 
all that appears in Jesus — how comes it that they 
should have contrived to represent a character every 
way departing from their national type, at variance 
with all those features which custom and education 
and patriotism and religion and nature seemed to 
have consecrated as of all most beautiful ?" * 

Having the original from which to draw, men 
might invent something similar to it ; but even then 
the weakness of man's hand would still show itself 
A Jew of our times has taken the story of Jesus and 
tried to construct out of it a perfect human ideal of 
his own, and the result is before us. The Jesus of 
Renan is nothing but a fanatic enthusiast, seemingly 
loving and good, but not scrupling to use immoral 
means for the accomplishment of his ends.f 

■* Wiseman's Science and Revealed Religion, p. 166. 

•j- " Who is Jesus, according to this man's description ? Shall I 
bluntly speak it ? — a fanatic, who gradually becomes an impostor, and 
whom death finally takes off at the earliest moment from the embar- 
rassment and complications which he had himself prepared. Or shall 
I describe his progress more in detail ? — first a pious, amiable fanatic, 
who set before himself a precious but, alas ! impracticable ideal; then 
a gloomier fanatic, who dreams of the trump of the judgment-day, 
of his second coming, of a great catastrophe and revolution of the 
world; then an impostor against his own will, who permits himself 
to be forced to one concession after another ; finally, an intentional 
impostor ! The fine words of which Renan is so remarkable a master 
are here of no avail : the things themselves speak." — Uhlhorn's Rep- 



196 RIGHT LIFE. 



This is about the best any man on his own model 
can do, even with the glorious portrait of the Saviour 
before him. 

How, then, could those Jewish publicans and fish- 
ermen who wrote the history of Christ, taught to 
revere the most opposite ideals, have invented and 
so consistently sketched their picture of the Christ? 
Such an achievement on their part in the nature of 
the case was simply impossible, except by the high- 
est form of divine inspiration or by having the mirac- 
ulous Being whom they describe in actual living 
reality before their eyes. Even Goethe was forced 
to confess, " I esteem the Gospels to be thoroughly 
genuine, for there shines forth from them the re- 
flected splendor of a sublimity proceeding from the 
person of Jesus Christ, and of so divine a kind as 
only the divine could ever have manifested upon 
earth." To invent a Jesus, even as a mere ideal, 
would require a Jesus himself; and as the world 
knows but one Jesus, it is out of the question that 
the Jesus-portrait should ever have been invented by 
any mere man or any set of men.* 

reicniaiions, etc.. Disc. i. Yet this is the Jesus whom Renan pro- 
claims the worthiest and most worshipful of men ! 

*" In Renan's Christ we see the likeness of the ready, ingenious, 
.sometimes charming Frenchman; in Schcnkel's Christ we see the 
likeness of the ecclesiastical agitator; ami in Strauss's Christ we see 
the likeness of the learned theorist who hiilKls the whole world on an 
inference."— Uiilliorn, Disc. ii. 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 1 97 

And if this portrait was not invented by man, it 
must have come from some supernatural intervention 
of God, either to inspire the ideal or to produce the 
actual Being described; and whichever alternative 
we take we have supernatural revelation. 

But it is impossible that the story of Jesus should 
be nothing more than an ideal. If the New-Testa- 
ment writers were divinely helped to conceive it, as 
they must have been, they could not have been such 
impious and dishonest men as to unite in the danger- 
ous plot of palming it upon the credulity of mankind 
as a matter of historic truth. Nor is there aught in 
all the history to show or to beget the suspicion that 
they were men capable of originating such a fraud, 
or in a situation to do it even if they had been so 
minded — aught to show that they were deceived 
themselves or that they entered into a collusion to 
deceive others. Artless simplicity, almost as won- 
derful as the story they tell, and manifest honesty, as 
transparent as the righteousness of Him whom they 
describe, appear on every page. ** We may contest 
their learning, critical sagacity, worldly wisdom, and 
even their common sense, but it is impossible to deny 
their good faith."* Then what they say they saw 
and heard and handled and had sensible proof of 
must have been reality. 

*Schafif's Christ and Christianity, p. 27. 



RIGHT LIFE. 



Besides, men never make great and hazardous ad- 
ventures without some adequate motive. But what 
could have been the motive of these men in testify- 
ing unto death to the reaHty of what they describe 
if it was not h'teral truth ? 

" Or how or why 
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie ? 
Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice, 
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price." 

And what are we to think of the sober intelhgence 
of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans of that age that 
they could be so effectually duped by a handful of 
illiterate fishermen and publicans ? Was the great 
Saul of Tarsus a man to be fooled into a life of mar- 
tyrdom by a cunning lie of the very people whom 
he most heartily hated and persecuted ? To order 
our thinking after such a style is to insult common 
sense and to outrage the dignity of human nature. 

And when we have it before us as a matter of fact 
that He to whose words and deeds these men per- 
sisted in testifying amidst all sorts of suffering and 
contumely to the end, did, with His pierced hands, 
without force and without shedding a drop of blood 
but His own, lift empires from their hinges, turn the 
stream of centuries, and impress and gox'crn the ages 
from His time till now, it is too late for men to rise 
up and say that no such Being as Jesus ever lived 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 1 99 

Upon earth, and that the story of Him is nothing 
but a mythic fable and a lie. As no one can drop 
George Washington out of the United States, or 
Luther out of the Reformation, or Juhus Caesar out 
of the Roman empire, and explain or maintain the 
integrity of history, so no man can drop Jesus out 
of Christianity or out of living place in His time and 
give any just account of the course and history of 
this world for the last eighteen hundred years. Jesus 
did live and do and teach and suffer and triumph 
precisely as His biographers state that He did, or 
the records of a thousand years give us but little 
else than groundless fictions or a series of enigmas 
which no man can solve, while much of the very 
best that is now upon earth, and most blessing the 
race, is utterly inexplicable.* 

* " Measure the religious doctrine of Jesus by that of the time and 
place He lived in, or that of any time and any place — yes, by the 
doctrine of eternal truth. Consider what a work His words and 
deeds have wrought in the world. Remember that the greatest minds 
have seen no farther, and added nothing to the doctrine of religion; 
that the richest hearts have felt no deeper, and added nothing to the 
sentiment of religion; have set no loftier aim, no truer method, than 
His, of perfect love to God and man. Measure Him by the shadow 
He cast into the world — no, by the light He has shed upon it. Shall 
we be told such a man never lived — the whole story is a lie? Sup- 
pose that Plato and Newton never lived, but who did their wonders 
and thought their thoughts ? It takes a Newton to forge a Newton. 
"What man could have fabricated a Jesus ? None but Jesus." — Quoted 
in Bushnell's Nature and the Superjtatural, chap. x. 

Even Rousseau says upon this point : " Shall we suppose the evan- 



200 RIGHT LIFE. 



Who, then, was Jesus ? What was He ? What 
is His story in actual history ? It would require 
volumes to answer these questions fully. I can only 
glance at the facts in so far as they show what a su- 
pernatural, sublime, and divine Being the story of 
Jesus presents to our contemplation. 

He appears in the Record as one of the common 
people of Galilee, poor, obscure, and straitened in 
every way, brought up in a humble home in a hum- 
ble village.* Of the first thirty years of His life we 
know very little. As a child and youth he did not 
differ much from any other Jewish child in a hum- 
ble and pious Jewish household, except that He is 
spoken of as peculiarly *' the holy child." 

gelic history a mere fiction ? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the 
marks of fiction ; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which no- 
body presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. 
Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without obviating 
it. It is more conceivable that a number of persons should agree to 
write such a history than that one only should furnish the subject of 
it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction and strangers 
to the morality contained in the Gospels, the marks of whose truth 
are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more as- 
tonishing man than the hero." — Quoted in The Gospel and the Age, 
p. 78. 

* A humble village indeed, but still how fitting to be the place for 
the bringing up of such a character as that of Jesus ! Renan is here 
himself the witness, who says: "If ever the world, still Chrisiiaii, 
shall desire to substitute authentic holy places for the mean and apoc- 
ryphal sanctuaries which were seized upon by the iiiety of the bar- 
barous ages, it is upon this heiglit of Na/areth lliai ii will build its 
temple." — Quoted by Uhlhorn. 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 201 



Educational facilities then were few, narrow, and 
mostly given to the fostering of Jewish peculiarities 
and passions, with very little to broaden man or to 
cultivate the generous and refined humanities. But, 
even such as they were, Jesus enjoyed them in a 
very limited degree. His enemies made it a point 
against Him that He never had any learning. 

When about twelve years old He was taken to 
Jerusalem to attend one of the great Jewish festivals. 
It was from what He there saw and heard that His 
inner nature seems to have received its first potent 
stir. At any rate, there was then and there awak- 
ened in Him a clear consciousness of a much nearer 
standing to His Father in heaven than to His earthly 
parents, which He expressed in answer to the chidings 
of His mother, but of which He never spoke again 
until about eighteen years afterward, when He an- 
nounced Himself as the divine Christ of sacred 
prophecy.'^ 

"5^ Dr. Bushnell specially emphasizes these touches with reference 
to the Saviour's childhood as something altogether extraordinaiy and 
quite beyond the reach of man's invention. He says : " Here is 
given the sketch of a perfect and sacred childhood — not of a simple, 
lovely, ingenuous, and properly human childhood such as the poets 
love to sketch, but of a sacred and celestial childhood. In this re- 
spect the early character of Jesus is a picture that stands by itself. 
In no other case that we remember has it ever entered the mind of a 
biographer, in drawing a character, to represent it as beginning with 
spotless childhood. The childhood of the great human characters, 
if given at all, is commonly represented, according to the uniform 



202 RIGHT LIFE. 



During His youth and early manhood He re- 
mained subject to His parents at Nazareth, being 
well esteemed by those who knew Him, and humbly 
growing in piety and communion with God. He 
filled a son's duties as any other good man, assisting 
in His foster-father's handicraft, earning His daily 
bread by daily toil, and pursuing the same occupa- 
tion to provide for the ordinary wants of the family 
after His foster-father's death. He was a regular 
and reverent attendant at the synagogue, where He 
heard the prophets read and expounded, joined in 
the prayers of Israel, and quietly nursed the holy 

truth, as being more or less contrary to the manner of their mature 
age; never as being strictly one with it, except in those cases of in- 
ferior eminence where the kind of distinction attained to is that of 
some mere prodigy, and not a character of greatness in action or of 
moral excellence. In all the higher ranges of character the excel- 
lence portrayed is never the simple unfolding of a harmonious and 
perfect beauty contained in the germ of childhood, but it is a charac- 
ter formed by the process of rectification, in which many follies are 
mended and distempers removed; in which confidence is checked 
by defeat, passion moderated by reason, smartness sobered by expe- 
rience. . . . Besides, if any writer of almost any age will undertake 
to describe not merely a spotless, but a superhuman or celestial child- 
hood, not having the reality before him, he must be somewhat more 
than human himself if he does not pile together a mass of clumsy 
exaggerations, and draw and overdraw till neither heaven nor earth 
can find any verisimilitude in the jiicture. See what Josephus and 
the rabbis made of the childhood of Moses, and what work was made 
of the childhood of Jesus in the apocryphal Gospels. How unlike 
that holy flower of Paradise in the true Gospels which a few simple 
touches make to bloom in beautiful self-evidence before us !'' — Xaiure 
and the Supernatural, ch. x. 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 203 

secret of His mysterious nature and sublime mission, 
until the time came for Him to enter upon the great 
work for which He came into the world. 

This of itself was something superhuman. Con- 
scious of a nature and mission far transcending 
everything ever possessed by any other man, such 
patient and long-continued reticence, meekness, and 
self-suppression with regard to it were wholly differ- 
ent from all ordinary behavior of men. 

And this same unprecedented and astonishing 
meekness was one of His most marked character- 
istics throughout, showing itself in the way He en- 
tered upon His public work, in the manner in which 
He uniformly conducted Himself in it, and, above 
all, in the manner in which He bore Himself under 
the provocations, mistreatment, and persecutions 
heaped upon Him by His enemies, even to His 
death on the cross as the victim of their maligni- 
ties. 

Observe also His laborious and self-sacrificing 
goodness. From the time He began His ministry 
to the end of it He was continually hurried from 
scene to scene, His days occupied, His nights invaded 
to late hours, even His retirement for devotion be- 
sieged, so that it was more than once said of Him 
that He did not have time to eat, while His friends 
sometimes thought it would be necessary forcibly to 



204 RIGHT LIFE. 



restrain Him, lest He should swoon away or lose 
His mind from incessant overwork. And yet the 
only motive and spirit which actuated Him was that 
of love and goodness to the poor, the distressed, the 
sick, the forsaken, the despised, the needy, and the 
unhappy. He came to seek and to save the lost, 
disconsolate, and self-condemned, and never ceased 
to call and welcome all the weary and heavy-laden 
to come to Him that He might give them rest. 
There is not one work that He ever did, whether 
toward friend or foe, that was not inbreathed with 
the spirit of love. Compassion and sympathy and 
beneficent kindness, even to the laying down of His 
own life for the good of men, streamed from Him as 
light from the sun. A goodness so untiring and 
transcendent, and transfigured withal by a gentle- 
ness of majesty that awes into adoration while it 
blesses, was never seen upon earth except in Him, 
And it was the same to Jews and Samaritans, Roman 
soldiers and Judean scribes, the fishermen of Galilee 
and the Levites about the temple, little children and 
titled Nicodemuses, — Matthews and Magdalenes and 
Zaccheuses and harlots and Judases, as well as Peters 
and Johns and sisters of Bethany and widows of 
Nain and matrons of Capernaum ; yea, even to 
thieves under the penalties of their crimes. To 
everything possessing human life, however marred, 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 20$ 

sunk, deformed, guilty, or disgraced, His great heart 
went out with tenderness and with a benignity so 
dignified and pure as never for an instant to identify 
Him with the shghtest taint of wrong or encourage- 
ment to sin. 

Notice also His miraculous originality and breadth. 
In the ordinary course of things a man can never be 
greater than his age and surroundings enable him to 
be. Every one depends on what he inherits from his 
parents, his schooling, his companions, the society in 
which he lives and thinks, the customs, traditions, 
poetry, proverbs, history, and spirit of his nation, 
and especially those moral and intellectual posses- 
sions which give the particular type of the people to 
whom he belongs. There could have been no 
Socrates or Plato outside of Greece, no Bacon in 
any other than his own age or without what went 
before. But this rule is completely reversed and 
negatived in the case of Jesus. His age and nation 
would have made Him an embodiment of Judaism, 
after the style of Saul of Tarsus before his conver- 
sion. Yet this is just what He was not. Born a 
Jew, brought up a Jew, never breathing any other 
air than that of Judaism, without culture, reading, 
travel, or any outward opportunities of intercourse 
with the world to lift Him above the passions and 
prejudices of His countrymen and time. He was yet 



206 RIGHT LIFE. 



the least national or local and the broadest and most 
universal person in history — least the product of His 
age and most the child of eternity. He neither 
spoke nor thought nor felt nor acted like a Jew, nor 
yet like a Gentile, but like Himself alone.* 

There is very little originality in this world. Even 
Goethe said : " If I could enumerate all that I really 
owe to the great men who have preceded me, and to 
those of my own day, it would be seen that very 
little is really my own." The same might be said 
of all other great human geniuses. But Christ was 
as original as He was broad. As Liddon states the 
case, it is not seriously pretended on any side that 
Jesus was enriched with one single ray of His 
thought from Athens, from Alexandria, from the 
mystics of the Ganges or the Indus, from the dis- 
ciples of Zoroaster or of Confucius. The centurion 
whose servant He healed, the Greeks whom He met 
at the instance of Philip, the Syro-phoenician woman, 
the judge who condemned and the soldiers who cru- 
cified Him, are the few Gentiles with whom He had 
dealings during His earthly life. He mingled neither 
with great thinkers who could mould educated opin- 
ion, nor with men of gentle blood who could give 
tone to society. Till thirty years of age He was a 
workman in the shop of a carpenter, living in what 

"^^^ Sec l'"airl)airn's City of CoJ. 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 20/ 

might have seemed the depths of mental soHtude 
and social obscurity. It was from a sphere so hum- 
ble that He suddenly emerged, not to foment a po- 
litical revolution nor yet to found a local school of 
evanescent sentiment, but to proclaim an enduring 
and world-wide kingdom of souls, based upon the 
culture of a common moral character and upon in- 
tellectual submission to a common creed. 

The like of this never appeared in this world be- 
fore or since. The kingdom He proclaimed had 
nothing in common with the philosophical schools 
or coteries which grouped themselves around Soc- 
rates and other teachers of classic Greece. There 
was nothing in any of the sects of Judaism that 
could have suggested such a conception. Each and 
all of them differed from it, not only in organization 
and structure, but in range and compass, in life and 
action, in spirit and aim. Nor could it be traced in 
outline in the vague yearnings and aspirations after 
a better time which entered so mysteriously into the 
popular thought of the heathen world in the Au- 
gustan age. It was a complete answer to these as- 
pirations, but they did not originate it, nor could 
they. The material Utopia to which they pointed 
did not at all enter into the plan of the Founder of 
Christianity. Nor was it really the continuation of 
the announcement of the prophets and John the 



208 RIGHT LIFE. 



Baptist. If prophecy supplied some of the materials 
Christ employed, His creative thought did not de- 
pend upon them.* The world has nothing to match 
with His Sermon on the Mount or His last farewell 
discourses. He, and He alone, gave practical and 
energetic form to the idea of a strictly independent 
society made up of people of enlightened and puri- 
fied consciences, cramped by no national or local 
bounds of privilege, and destined to spread through- 
out earth and heaven. And the masterful complete- 

■5^ " If from East to We?t we ransack the literature and philosophy 
of the habitable globe, we may here and there cull some memorable 
aphorisms resembling those we too reverence in our heritage of moral 
truths, and at epochs separated from each other by thousands of 
years it is possible to catch now and then a glimpse of those pris- 
matic hues which may be combined into the pure white ray of Chris- 
tian doctrine. Not only in the doctrines of the later Stoicism, when 
already through the despairing twilight a luminous haze had been 
diffused — not only in the open plagiarisms of the Koran, spoiled so 
often in the plagiarizing — but even centuries before Christ, in the 
Dialogues of Socrates, in the Republic of Plato, in the Analects of 
Confucius, in the Laws of Manou, in the Sutras of the Buddhists, 
in the Vedas of the Brahmans, in the Zend Avesta of the Parsis, in 
the Pirke Avoth of the rabbins, there are unquestionably precepts 
which might be combined into a very pure and noble code. Yet 
what candid reasoner, even were he an unbeliever in Christianity, 
could dream of comparing any one of these books, or the men who 
Avrote them, or the systems in which they issued, with the Gospels, or 
with Christianity, or with Christ ? ... To compare any one of these 
with the humble Carpenter of Nazareth is to match a dim and un- 
certain twilight with the sun at noon. The least in the kingdom of 
heaven is greater than these." — Farrar's Witness of Histoty to C/in'st, 
pp. 136-142. 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 2O9 

ness and symmetry of His plan can be traced to no 
source beyond Himself.* 

All mere men are more or less sectional. A formal 
review of all the great planters of states, the most 
celebrated lawgivers, the great heroes and defenders 
of nations, all the wise kings and statesmen, and all 
the noted philosophers and prophet-founders of 
religions, as Reinhard has shown, presents nothing 
to compare with the purpose and mission enunciated 
by Jesus Christ. In every case we behold some sort 
of limitation to the interests of one people or one 
empire as against the rest of mankind, except in this 
simple Galilean carpenter. " He speaks as a Being 
related to the whole human race. A narrower sphere 
than the world never enters His thoughts." He 
who had never seen a map of the world, or heard 
the names of half the great nations on it, came forth 
from His shop with an effective plan to new-create 
the human family, and to organize a spiritual empire 
to which that of Rome, constructed by so many 
ages of war and conquest, was scarce a cipher — a 
kingdom to extend through all time and to be con- 
summated in undisputed sovereignty over all nations, 
peoples, and tongues. And all this He did in a way 
of assurance as simple and quiet as if His vast and 
unexampled proposal were to Him a matter of course, 

* See Liddon's Bampton Lectures^ pp. 107-113. 
14 



2IO RIGHT LIFE. 



and so certain to succeed that even His foreseen 
early death interposed no check upon His words, no 
shaking of His confidence, nor the remotest thought 
of failure. 

Ah, yes ; we feel that in Jesus " a new Being, of a 
new order of mind^ was taking part in human affairs." 
He was not the son of a sect, nor the son of an age, 
but THE Son of man. Once in the roll of ages 
there had come forth upon the stock of human 
nature, in the narrowest and most bigoted of lands, 
a faultless Flower, not only embodying in Himself 
the fulness of the best that man or woman ever was 
or thought or yearned after, but higher and broader 
than all the race — the sublime Impersonation, 
Brother, and Saviour of universal man, in whose 
lone Self humanity finds its oneness, the object of 
its long anxious search, its supreme and inexhaust- 
ible prototype, with every diversity and peculiarity 
of nation, time, and turn quite sunk and lost in a 
moral beauty far transcending all distinctions that 
hold upon the earth. Could all this have been 
except as He was the Sent and Son of God ?* 

■5^ "This increases our mysterious wonder, that He who assuredly 
was not as the rest of men, who could thus separate Himself in cha- 
racter from whatever was held most perfect and most admirable by 
all who surrounded Him and by all who had taught Him; who, 
while He set Himself far above all national ideas of moral perfec- 
tion, yet borrowed nothing from Greek or Indian or Egyptian or 
Roman; who, while He thus had nothing in common with any 



J^E VELA TION FUR THER DEMONSTRA TED. 2 1 1 

Observe also the perfect harmony and consistency 
of His whole nature, life, and character. Every 
mere man is more or less out of accord with him- 
self, falling below his own standard, yielding to the 
pressure of circumstances, jostled by passion and 
excitement, betrayed by his native weakness, doing 
what he knows is wrong and omitting what he 
knows is right. It was not so with Jesus. In doc- 
trine and conduct, before friend and foe, under 
pressure and when free, in private and in public, in 
action and in suffering. His whole being was bal- 
anced, perfectly proportioned, perfectly harmonious 
and consistent. His head and His heart. His teach- 
ing and His doing. His reason and His feeling, were 
ever of a piece, and never diverged from each other. 
Though seemingly all love, tenderness, and affection. 
He was at the same time all intelligence, enlighten- 
ment, purity, and truth. Apparently the most emo- 

knovvn standard of character and established law of perfection, 
should seem to every one the type of his peculiarly beloved excel- 
lence. And truly, when we see how He can have been followed by 
the Greek, though a founder of none among his sects ; revered by the 
Brahman, though preached unto him by men of the fisherman's 
caste ; worshipped by the red man of Canada, though belonging to 
the hated pale faces, — we cannot but consider him as destined to 
break down all distinction of color and shape and countenance and 
habits — to form Himself the type of unity to which are referable all 
the sons of Adam, and give us, in the possibility of this moral con- 
vergence, the strongest proof that the human species, however varied, 
is essentially one." — Wiseman's Science and Rev, Religion, pp. 167, 
168. 



212 RIGHT LIFE. 



tional of men, He was never driven into passionate 
excitement, never lost His quiet dignity, His peace- 
ful simplicity, His sublime consistency. He never 
said a word that He had occasion to retract or alter ; 
He never did an act that He regretted; and He 
never had to ask pardon of God or man. Never a 
note of discord came between His actual life and 
His conscience, or between Himself and His Father 
in heaven. His whole being was a prayer, but it 
had in it no clause asking for forgiveness. He 
taught all His followers to pray to be forgiven, but 
He never prayed that prayer Himself, for there was 
nothing in Him to be forgiven. When He came to 
the end of His days He triumphantly threw down 
the challenge to His foes, "Which of you convinceth 
me of sin ?" And from that hour to this no man 
has been able to answer the challenge or to pick a 
flaw in the character of Jesus. He was altogether 
the most perfect character that ever lived on earth. 
Nay, the sense of sinfulness in other men is be- 
gotten above all by His perfect sinlessness. It is the 
light of His holiness and matchless goodness that 
creates in us the consciousness of sin and darkness 
and most shames our guilt. Loving sinners even to 
the sacrifice of Himself for their good, and drawing 
them to Him that He might heal and save them, 
there never has been another man in whose presence 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 213 

sin feels so clearly uncovered or so powerfully re- 
buked. 

And whence was this harmonious wholeness, this 
potent sinlessness, realized amid conditions so pro- 
vocative of the contrary ? Heredity cannot explain 
it, for it is the reverse of heredity. No theory of 
development can explain it, for it stands as a radical 
contradiction to any such theory. Education cannot 
explain it, for between any education possible to Jesus 
and the result there is not only fatal disproportion, 
but direct antagonism. " Circumstances may develop 
qualities, but do not create characters. There can be 
no sinlessness without a sinless will, no holiness 
without a whole and holy nature." The perfection 
and sinless harmony of Jesus therefore argue a 
perfect nature, which is not the work or product 
of a people or an age, but absolutely His own, dis- 
tinct and apart from everything outside of Himself, 
and hence a veritable miracle in the sphere of morals 
and personality.* 

Contemplate also His power as a teacher. He was 
not a poet, not an orator, not a philosopher. He was 
but a plain and unlearned man, speaking in the 
utmost simplicity and the most conversational famili- 
arity. The greatest and sublimest truths dropped from 
His lips in the plainest words, as if He hardly knew 

* See Fairbairn's City of God. 



214 RIGHT LIFE. 



what mighty things He was saying, and yet uttered 
with such clearness, certainty, and force of convic- 
tion that men were amazed and awed, saying, " Never 
man spake hke this man." Every opening of His 
mouth showed that the world of eternal truth was 
His home, and as familiar to Him as His own voice. 
He spoke of God and His relation to the Father and 
the mind and will of the Father — of the spiritual 
world, of the future, of the kingdom of God, of the 
highest moral truths, of the supreme obligations of 
man, and of all the greatest questions and deepest 
enigmas of life, duty, and hope, so simply, so clearly, 
so calmly, so perfectly self-contained, and so utterly 
devoid of expatiation on His peculiar knowledge, or 
of reference to any authority but Himself, or of any 
intimation that aught could possibly be different from 
what He said, that men felt themselves brought face 
to face with absolute truth in his presence, and as if 
truth itself were speaking when He spoke.* 

His ministry was very brief It did not extend 

* " He speaks in a natural, spontaneous style of accomplishing the 
most arduous and important change in human affairs. This unlabored 
manner of expressing great thoughts is particularly worthy of attention. 
You never hear from Jesus that swelling, pompous, ostentatious lan- 
guage which almost necessarily springs from an attempt to sustain a 
character above our powers. He talks of His glories as one to 
whom they were familiar. . . . He speaks of saving and judging 
the world, of drawing all men to Himself, and of giving everlasting 
life, as we speak of ordinary powers which we exert." — Channing's 
Works ^ ii. 5$. 



RE VELA TION FUR TIIER DEMONSTRA TED. 2 I 5 

beyond three years and a half. It was perhaps the 
briefest, most troubled, and most tragic ^ministry that 
ever largely affected the race of man. But in that 
short perturbed period, in those plain utterances, 
without the writing of a line, He became the supreme 
Teacher of all time.* " His words have been the 
wonder of the world. Age has not dimmed their 
light, lessened their sweetness, or diminished their 
force. Familiarity has not spoiled their freshness or 
their fragrance ; life, though it has grown richer and 
more varied, has not outgrown their wisdom or 
superseded by fulfilling their ideals. Time and 
culture have called into the field of thought the 
wealth of many centuries and lands, but there have 
come no rivals to the words of Jesus. They shine 

■^"We ask confidently, Does the history of philosophy, of legisla- 
tion, of any achieved success of the human mind, furnish any parallel 
to this ? Did Abraham require no more than three years to prepare 
for the setting up of his dispensation ? How long was Moses in 
educating himself to be the leader and lawgiver of his people ? 
What had three years been to Pericles in building up the polity of 
Athens, to Justinian in framing a code for the empire, or to Aristotle 
or Newton and Bacon in maturing those mighty philosophies which 
were to guide the intellects of ages ? Such familiar illustrations force 
the question upon us, Is it possible, upon ordinary human conditions, 
to explain how an obscure, unbefriended mechanic, beginning his 
teaching labors at thirty years of age, dying at thirty- three, could in 
that brief interval secure the establishment of a system which should 
effect an entire revolution of human thought and sweep the most 
hoary superstitions from the face of the earth ?" — Moore's The Age 
and the Gospel, pp. 74, 75. 



2l6 RIGHT LIFE. 



peerless as ever, the sweetest, calmest, simplest, 
wisest words ever spoken by man to men. So true 
are they, so mighty in their energy, so soft in their 
strength, so reasonable, so fitted to make life peace- 
ful, gentle, happy, holy, that men who have wished 
not to believe the Christian religion have often re- 
fused to part with the truths and consolations of 
Jesus." * 

Observe also His testimony concerning Himself. 
If He was sinless. He could not lie. If He knew 
and spoke the truth, then what He claimed and 
taught respecting His nature, mission, and office 
must be true. And yet, contrary to the manner of 
all other men, and according to what would be in- 
tolerable conceit and blasphemy in every other 
teacher, the central topic of all His sayings was 
Himself. No matter where the subject begins, how 
it continues, or where it ends. He is ever the chief 
substance of it. 

" It is I " is the great text, says an able German 
divine, of all Christ's teaching. Is it of the king- 
dom of heaven He speaks ? He presents Himself 
as the Bringer, Establisher, and King of it. Is it of 
the supreme duty of man that He discourses ? The 
state of mind and disposition of heart entertained 
toward Him is its all-embracing essence. Is it of 

* Fairbairn's Cily of God, p. 235. 



I^E VELA TION FUR THER DEMONSTRA TED. 2 1 7 

eternal life He treats ? It is alone by faith in Him 
and coming to Him and abiding in Him that it can 
be reached. Is it of God that the inquiry is ? His 
answer is, " He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
Father — I am in the Father, and the Father in Me." 
The cause He advocates, the salvation He brings, 
the demands He makes, and all the particulars of 
the future He announces, He presents as alike de- 
pendent on Himself. He even binds up the eternal 
destiny of every hearer of the Gospel with the affec- 
tion exercised toward Himself, saying, " If ye believe 
not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." He 
not only places Himself before all the sorrowing 
and lost as the only source of rest and salvation, 
but also as a mighty plenipotent to whom all judg- 
ment is committed to deal out destiny to the entire 
world. What would such language be in the mouth 
of a mere man ? Even the insane arrogance of those 
earthly potentates who required their subjects to 
honor them as gods never asserted so high a posi- 
tion as that which Jesus propounded as His own. 
Yet He was the very calmest, meekest, and most 
composed of men, nor ever abated a jot of all He 
ever said, even when being condemned as a criminal 
and consigned to a malefactor's death because He 
claimed to be the Son of God.* 

* ** Certain it is that no mere man could take the same attitude of 



2l8 RIGHT LIFE. 



But what He spoke with His Hps He attested by 
His miracles, sealed with His blood, vindicated by 

supremacy toward the race, and inherent affinity or oneness with God, 
without fatally shocking the confidence of the world by His effrontery. 
Imagine a human creature saying to the world, ' I came forth from 
the Father ' — < Ye are from beneath, I am from above j' facing all the 
intelligence, and even the philosophy, of the world and saying, in 
bold assurance, * Behold, a greater than Solomon is here ' — • I am 
the Light of the world' — 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life;' 
publishing to all peoples and religions, * No man cometh to the Father 
but by Me ;' promising openly in His death, ' I will draw all men 
unto Me;' addressing the infinite Majesty, and testifying,*! have 
glorified Thee on the earth;' laying His hand upon all the dearest 
and most intimate affections of life and demanding a precedent love, 
• He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.' 
Was there ever displayed an example of effrontery and spiritual con- 
ceit so preposterous ? Was there ever a man that dared put himself 
on the world in such pretensions? — as if all light was in him; as if 
to follow him and be worthy of him was to be the conclusive or chief 
excellence of mankind ! What but mockery and disgust does he 
challenge as the certain reward of his audacity? But no one is 
offended with Jesus on this account ; and, what is a sure test of His 
success, it is remarkable that of all the readers of the gospel it prob- 
ably never occurred to one in a hundred thousand to blame His con- 
ceit or the egregious vanity of His pretensions. Nor is there any- 
thing disputable in these pretensions, least of all any trace of myth 
or fabulous tradition. They enter into the veiy web of His ministry, 
so that if they are extracted and nothing left transcending mere hu- 
manity, nothing at all is left." — Bushnell's Nature and the Super- 
natural, ch. X. 

" What matchless fraud must unbelievers charge upon Him in 
whose mouth was found no guile if He falsely attempted to make 
the world believe that, amidst all His outward poverty and meanness, 
He was the Son of God ; that He was to be the Ruler and Judge of 
the world; that they who had seen Him had seen the Father; and 
that all were bound to honor Him as they honor the Father! Or, if 
not chargeable with fraud, what wild insanity must they ascribe to 
Him who in the most wretched outward condition could fancy Him- 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 219 

His resurrection, and is ever proving by the mighty 
forces which He has set in motion for the regener- 
ation of mankind and the refashioning of the world. 
Nay, all that He thus testifies of Himself must needs 
be true, for the facts leave no middle ground between 
the alternative of absolute truth or absolute mad- 
ness ; and he who can rise up and say that Jesus was 
a madman thereby shows himself the maddest of the 
mad. 

And note yet again with what calm serenity He 
provided for the perpetual commemoration of His 
death when on the eve of His crucifixion. Who 
can conceive of anything more sublime and touching 
than this peaceful painstaking to keep alive the fact 
of His shameful death ? What an assured confidence 
of His certain triumph does it betoken ! And, what 
is more, the result has been just as He contemplated. 
This is the mystery if He be not all that He claimed 
to be — more truly miraculous than anything ever so 
called, and a thing utterly inexplicable on any nat- 
ural principles. Was it ever heard of that a person 
in the position of a malefactor, and about to die as 
one, took such care to have it known to the end of 
time in what shame his life ended, and that the pro- 
self to be God and Lord ! And of what outrageous folly and idol- 
atry were His apostles and His followers in all subsequent ages guilty 
to believe in Him and adore Him!" — Sartorius's Person and Work 
of Christ, Lee. iii. 



220 RIGHT LIFE. 



visions for its perpetual commemoration continued 
to be devoutly observed more and more widely for 
nearly two thousand years ? Such facts can be ex- 
plained on no other assumption than that Christ was 
all that He claimed both as to His person and His 
mission.* 

Dear friends, look at these facts, which I have 
scarcely half told. See how the image of this " car- 
penter's son " looms up amid the ages as the sub- 
limest, most unique, and most wonderful personage 
that ever walked the earth in flesh and blood or that 
ever rose before the imagination of mortal man. 

Here is a Galilean peasant, surrounded by a few 
followers taken like Himself from the lowest orders 
of society, yet He deliberately proposes to rule all 
human thought, to make Himself the Centre of all 
human affections, to be the Lawgiver of humanity, 
and the Object of man's adoration. He founds a 
spiritual society, the thought and heart and activity 
of which are to converge upon His person, and He 
tells His followers that this society which He is 
forming is the real explanation of the highest visions 
of seers and prophets — that it will embrace all races 
and extend throughout all time. He places Him- 
self before the world as the true goal of its expecta- 
tions, and He points to His proposed work as the 

* See Young's Christ of History, pp. 241, 242. 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 221 

one hope of its future. There was to be a universal 
rehgion, and He would found it. A century and a 
half later Celsus ridiculed the very idea as manifest 
folly, yet Christ staked His whole claim to respect 
and confidence upon it. He made no concessions to 
the passions or the prejudices of mankind, yet He 
predicts that His gospel will be preached in all the 
world, and that finally there will be but one Fold 
and one Shepherd of men, and that Shepherd Him- 
self He founds a world-wide religion, and promises 
to be the ever-present invigorating and sustaining 
force of it to the end of time. Was there ever 
another such a presentation ? * 

The great Napoleon, after having run his wonder- 
ful career and learned how to measure men and to 
weigh all earthly powers, said : " I know men, and I 
tell you that Jesus Christ was not a man. Super- 
ficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and 
the founders of empires and the gods of other re- 
ligions. That resemblance does not exist." . . . 
" Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit 
overawes me and His will confounds me. Between 
Him and whoever else in the world there is no pos- 
sible term of comparison. He is truly a Being by 
Himself His ideas and His sentiments, the truths 
which He announces and His manner of convincing, 

* Condensed from Liddon's Bampton Lectures^ pp. I16-118. 



222 RIGHT LIFE. 



are not explained by human organization or the na- 
ture of things. His birth and the history of His 
Hfe ; the profundity of His doctrine, which grapples 
with the mightiest difficulties, and which is of those 
difficulties the most admirable solution ; His gospel, 
His apparition, His empire. His march across the 
ages and the realms, — everything is, for me, a prod- 
igy, a mystery insoluble, which plunges me into 
reverie from which I cannot escape — a mystery 
which is there before my eyes — a mystery which I 
can neither deny nor explain. Here I see nothing 
human." . . . "Who but God could produce that 
type, that idea of perfection, equally exclusive and 
original ?" . . . " Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, 
and myself founded empires. But upon what did 
we rest the creations of our genius ? Upon force. 
Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love, 
and at this hour millions of men would die for 
Him." * 

Other men have their compeers, Jesus has none. 
He stands alone in His meek majesty and heavenly 
greatness. In the highest department of human 
thought and action He stands solitary, a class to 
Himself. Living among men, He never said ivc 
or our except as associated with the Father, and is 
everlastingly apart from and above all others of 

* See Abbott's Life of Xnpolcon. 



REVELATION FURTHER DEMONSTRATED. 223 

woman born. No philosopher, no poet, no miUtary 
genius, no orator, no teacher of mankind, stands out 
in such high, indisputable, and unapproached su- 
periority over all others in the same field. There 
is no one to be compared with Jesus in His depart- 
ment. Even the Roman captain who commanded 
at His crucifixion could not but say, " Truly ^ this 
zvas the Son of God T 

Now, the very existence of this picture is a mir- 
acle, and the realization of it in historic fact is the 
miracle of miracles. In vain will men try to ex- 
plain it except as a veritable putting forth of divine 
power — a supernatural revelation of Jehovah's good- 
ness for the bringing of lost souls to eternal life. 

He who opened a new universe for man must 
have come from God. Whatever mysteries may 
envelop the admission, they are neither so baffling 
nor so great as those which cover and smother us 
without it. Admit that Jesus is the Christ of God, 
and there is light and hope for man ; reject it, and 
starless darkness is all that is left to us. If it is a 
mystery, it is according to what pertains to the mo- 
tions of an infinite God, and as full of sweetness and 
blessing as it is of wonder. What all it brings us 
and implies cannot now be stated ; but if conclusive 
moral evidence can be called demonstration, the story 
of Jesus demonstrates thaf there is a Father in heav- 



224 RIGHT LIFE. 



en who cares for His lost, benighted, and sorrowing 
children on the earth, and has sent forth to them a 
Saviour and a Great One, bone of their bone and 
flesh of their flesh, yet able to save to the uttermost 
them that come unto God by Him. 

" Deep strike Thy roots, O heavenly Vine ! 
Within our earthly sod — 
Most human and yet most divine, 
The Flower of man and God!" 



LECTURE EIGHTH. 

5C|)e inebriation fig (IL\)xist 

John 17: 6: I have manifested Thy Name unto the men which 
thou gavest me out of the world. 

AS the story of Jesus demonstrates the reality 
J~\, of revelation and evidences its own historic 
truth, so Jesus Himself is the superlative revelation 
of God to man. Believing in Him, and appreciating, 
embracing, and entering into what God has given us 
in and through Him, we become " children of light," 
assured in divine knowledge, lifted out of the baffling 
doubts and uncertainties of unaided natural reason, 
and the happy citizens of a new world of thought, 
comfort, experience, and hope. Genuine Christian 
faith is an expatriating power which effectually severs 
from the darkness and death of sin's grovelling realm, 
and connects with a supernal kingdom of knowledge, 
quickening, righteousness, and peace, of which Jesus 
is the personal centre and life. And it is this mighty 
revelation of light, grace, and power to which I now 
call your attention. 

Whatever men may think of Christ, or in whatever 

15 226 



226 RIGHT LIFE. 



way they may attempt to dispose of the story of 
Jesus, one thing must necessarily be admitted by all 
— namely, that out of Him and His story has come 
a vast train of historical facts and results now 
potently present in the world and designated by the 
word Christianity. Let men seek to explain as they 
may who or what Christ was or is, and invent what 
theories they will to account for the fact, it still re- 
mains true that the being of Christianity is due to 
Christ, and that it lives and moves and has its being 
in and from Him. From the very first the character- 
istic of Christians was that they worshipfully called 
upon the name of the Lord Jesus. The heathen 
Pliny described them to the emperor Trajan as 
people who assembled in the early morning to sing 
hymns to Christ as God. And wherever proper 
Christians have existed or now exist, the whole 
world over, devotion to Jesus as the Author and 
Finisher of their faith and their true and only Lord 
and Saviour is their all-embracing and most con- 
spicuous mark. Christianity is the worship and 
service of Jesus as the Son of God and only Me- 
diator between God and man. He therefore is the 
Essence, Maker, and Life of Christianity, and wo man 
can separate between it and Him. 

This one fact sets forth Jesus as undeniably the 
greatest and most powerful personality in history, 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST. 22/ 

the centre of the mightiest and divinest forces that 
ever penetrated the spirit or ruled the thinking and 
activities of man, the potent source of the grandest 
moral, civilizing, and beneficent influences that ever 
affected the condition and career of our race. Even 
the coldest critics confess to a wonderful fascination 
and commanding power in the Records which tell 
of Him ; and the most daring thinkers, in spite of 
their unbelief, have again and again shown a beauti- 
ful reverence for His character and moral sublimity. 
To Spinoza He was the eternal Reason incarnated, 
the temple of man in which God stood most per- 
fectly revealed. Rousseau contrasts Him with Soc- 
rates, and said that if Socrates died like a philoso- 
pher, Jesus Christ died like a god. Goethe con- 
sidered progress possible in every direction except 
in the moral majesty and spiritual perfection ex- 
hibited in the portrait of Jesus. Schiller regarded 
Christ as incarnate holiness, and His religion in its 
purest forms as an embodiment of the holy. Strauss 
eulogizes Him as the supreme religious genius of 
time, who created and impersonated the ideal perfec- 
tion of religion. Renan pronounces Jesus worthy 
of rank among the worshipful, and assigns to Him 
the unique honor of having founded a true religious- 
ness which other men at best can only accept and 
continue. And the cycle of thinkers beginning with 



228 RIGHT LIFE, 



Kant and ending with Hegel made Christ the last 
problem of their philosophies, considering the ex- 
planation of Him the only proper explanation of 
religion, man, mind, and history.* 

This one fact also necessarily carries with it the 
historic reality of the story of Jesus. A power so 
immense and imperishable as to be the creator and 
life of Christianity, and so impressive even upon the 
best and mightiest skeptical thinkers, could never 
have been mythical and unreal in its root or unright- 
eous in its character and origin. *' Eternal law has 
made it impossible that the false should ever create 
the true or a bad ideal form and inspire a good 
reality." Christ must have been a real Person, such 
as the Gospels represent Him, or he could not pos- 
sibly thus have been the origin of all that is best 
and noblest in man and in the history of the last 
eighteen hundred years. 

How, then, did He come to be such a powerful 
factor in human thinking and condition ? It was 
not by means of the sword, as in the case of Mo- 
hammed. It was not by worldly riches, prestige, or 
political authority. It was not through the genius, 
culture, dignity, and influential estate of the advo- 
cates and friends He enlisted in His favor. Nor was 
it by anything but the new and mighty revelations 

* See Fairbairn's City of God, pp. 262, 263. 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST 229 

which were brought into the world in and through 
Him. 

I. First of all, He gave to the world a new idea 
of God. The Creation Record furnished a tremen- 
dous exhibit of eternal power and Godhead, but no 
teaching or teacher ever gave such a showing of God 
as that furnished by Jesus Christ. He created the 
whole Christian thought of God, which views the 
great First Cause and Final End of all things not as 
a stern power too vast to praise, too inexorable to 
propitiate, without ear for prayer or heart for sym- 
pathy or arm to save, but as a Spirit of eternal Love 
— an almightiness of pure Goodness, answering best 
to the name of Fatlier, even our Father, whom we 
can approach and ask for forgiveness, whom we can 
pray to and be certain that He will be our Guide 
unto death and afterward receive us to glory. 

The oldest of the Greek poets spoke of Zeus as 
** the Father of gods and men," but made him like to 
themselves. Philosophers spoke of the Father of 
the universe, and recognized something more than 
mere creatorship in the title, but added that it was 
hard to know Him and impossible to communicate 
such knowledge to the world. The Hebrew prophets 
spoke of Jehovah as the Father of Israel, forming 
and disciplining the chosen people with a wise and 
paternal affection ; but the real depths of the divine 



230 RIGHT LIFE. 



Fatherhood were never laid open to the view of man 
except in the person, mission, and teachings of Jesus. 
It is through the revelation of the Son that we each 
can find our personal fellowship with a Father in 
heaven, and that the idea of Fatherhood is shown to 
lie in the very nature of the Godhead. Coming into 
the world as the eternal outbirth of the Father to 
seek and to save lost man, and showing in His whole 
history the inexhaustible love of the Father, there 
bursts out from Him a new light upon all things. 
Now we see that the eternal happiness of God is in 
His love ; that love moved Him to create happiness 
by filling the silent places with glad voices and happy 
souls ; that man has come into being to satisfy the 
cravings of infinite love ; that God's eternal love is 
redemptive as well as creative ; that ill to man is pain 
and suffering to the love that called him into being 
— pain and suffering revealed and manifested in the 
humiliation, sufferings, and death of the only-begot- 
ten of the Father to restore man to the love whence 
he sprang ; and that so deep and undying is the pa- 
ternal affection of God for His creature man that the 
divinest jewel of eternity was not too much to be 
devoted to his recovery from the ill wliich had be- 
fallen him. 

In all this we get a look into the nature and heart 
of God such as has never been displayed but in and 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST. 23 I 

through Jesus Christ — a look the most affecting, sat- 
isfying, and hopeful to the human spirit that can by 
any means be given, and constituting one of the most 
precious treasures ever vouchsafed to man.* 

* ** Christianity, and Christianity alone, is the revelation of a pure 
and perfect love — the unveiling of the solitary model of this grace 
which humanity has furnished. A profound secret of God, the un- 
fathomable mercy of His nature, was to be divulged to the world. It 
was pronounced in words — in words of deep significance — but it was 
also expressed by a sign ; and there stood before men an impersona- 
tion of perfect love — a life which disclosed and embodied intense, 
inextinguishable, self-sacrificing love." — Young's Christ of History, 

P- ^ZZ- 

" It is glorious to be great and unlimited ; it is sublime to be ex- 
alted and majestic ; but it is grander and more sublime for greatness 
to humble itself, voluntarily to lay aside the splendor of majesty, and 
out of love to the little and low to become little and low. It is great 
to wear a crown and wield a sceptre ; but it is greater voluntarily to 
renounce them. It is noble to ascend a throne and exercise domin- 
ion over others ; but it is more noble to descend from a throne, out 
of love to become the servant of others. God is the Supreme Maj- 
esty, the King of kings, infinitely exalted, eternal, almighty, illimit- 
able. * The heaven of heavens cannot contain Him.' But along 
with His greatness in the great is His greatness in the little — along 
with greatness in height a greatness in depth — -condescension with 
sublimity — compassion with omnipotence — the form of God and the 
form of a servant — the wonder of His majesty and glory conjoined 
with the greater wonder of His condescending love — God manifest 
in the flesh — Deity incarnated — the Lord of glory humbling Himself 
to a state of poverty, suffering, and death to lift us mortals into fel- 
lowship with His glory." — Sartorius's Person and Work of Christ, 
Lee. i. 

" Christ is in the most absolute sense a revelation of God to men. 
Man's thought of God, of the cause and end alike of his own being 
and of the universe, is his most commanding thought ; make it, and 
you make the man. And Christ is here a supreme Creator. He 
made our thought of God ; made His God ours. Since He lived 



232 RIGHT LIFE. 



11. And as we have in Christ a new and more 
winning thought of God, so we have in Him a new 
and mighty revelation concerning man. In His 
human Hfe He has shown us the true divine ideal 
of man in actual life. To know what is perfect hu- 
manity we now need look no farther than Jesus. In 
Him was lived the highest and completest model of 
universal man. The best that man ever thought or 
that woman ever felt, and the same corrected and 
purged from any lingering error, mistake, or doubt, 
stands forth in living reality in Him. In His life all 
righteousness was personalized, all human virtues 
articulated, and all that is fair and beautiful in hu- 
manity revealed. He was truth, love, purity, devo- 
tion, faith, and hope, embodying all the qualities law 
most admires and the soul most loves. In relation 
to the Father He rendered perfect obedience as the 
first-born Son of God. He came to do the will of 
the Father, and He did it, even through suffering 
and death. In relation to man He was beneficence 
incarnate. He lived and died in the service of our 
race, and His devotion to human good was as par- 
ticular as it was universal, embracing all men of all 
classes, and each individual as all together. He was 

men have felt, and do feel, If God is, then He must be as He is re- 
vealed in Jesus Christ. A God like this does explain the world ; the 
world without Him were no home for man." — Fairbairn's City of 
God, p. 264. 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST 233 

the first in history to exemplify the spirit of univer- 
sal human brotherhood, lifting all to a common son- 
ship and equality before the eternal Father, humbling 
none but the proud and selfish, and thrilling the 
poorest and weakest with the idea of personal kin- 
ship with God. For the first time in the roll of ages 
the dignity of man as man was recognized and ac- 
knowledged, and the grand possibilities in the case 
of every member of our race revealed. In the con- 
ception which Jesus embodied there came an un- 
bounded elevation to the idea of humanity. Celsus 
made it a charge against Christianity that it ridicu- 
lously over-exalted mankind. He spoke the con- 
tempt of paganism for man ; but what he contemned 
is one of the peculiar glories of Christianity which 
has now become the possession of the world. So 
far from being only what he eats, man is really and 
truly the beloved child of God, created and nurtured 
of Heaven for life and expansion eternal. 

With Christ came also the embodied revelation 
that the service of God and the service of man 
belong together as of one piece, interpenetrating 
as the outbirth of the one Spirit of love. He came 
to do the will of the Father, but the doing of that 
will was to labor and suffer for the good of man. A 
new ideal of righteousness and a new order of benef- 
icent virtues thus came before human contemplation 



234 RIGHT LIFE. 



in real life, showing us that it is not the most scru- 
pulous ritualist, the bravest man, the richest man, 
the most learned man, the highest-born man, but the 
gentlest, the most pure in heart and life, the most 
loving, the most devoted in the service of his kind, 
that is the noblest, the worthiest, and the most 
god-like. 

All these ideas were the potent gift of God 
through Jesus Christ to our world — so potent that 
they have gone into the very bone and marrow of 
living mind, penetrated the very soul and substance 
of our newest and most characteristic modern 
thought, essentially transforming all human think- 
ing from its classic and Oriental mould. Atheism 
itself now speaks in Christ's words, arrays itself in 
ideas indubitably from Him, and plumes itself against 
the gospel by humanitarian thoughts which never 
could have been without the gospel. The foundations 
of Strauss's philosophy are essentially those of Lu- 
cretius, but his adored Universtnn has in it another 
spirit from that of the heathen philosopher, even the 
spirit of goodness and love, with a benevolence and 
righteousness built into its order and expressed in 
its laws which had their origin in the revelations 
made in Jesus. Another school makes the collective 
body of humanity the grand supreme whom it is our 
mission to serve, render more god-like in its good, 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST. 235 

less demoniac in its evil, and build into a mighty 
organism whose every unit shall contribute to the 
good of the whole, and the good of the whole 
become the possession and joy of all the units. 
Bating the false inferences that hang upon this 
philosophy, its main conception is stolen from the 
higher and holier exhibits in the mission and life of 
Christ, therewith to exalt a showing against its real 
source. It is God's thought of humanity as articu- 
lated in Christ, torn from its divine setting to glorify 
a godless creed. But it is the testimony of atheism 
itself to the worth and power of the revelation of the 
divine philanthropy in Christ Jesus. 

The thought of humanity as a whole, which views 
it as a delicate yet stupendous organism, a concrete 
and finely articulated being, with all its component 
units in ceaseless interactivity, so subtly and sympa- 
thetically related that no good or ill could come to 
one without touching and affecting all, did not orig- 
inate with Auguste Comte or Saint Simon or any of 
the Socialistic thinkers who have only degraded the 
grand conception. In its genuine form and most mo- 
mentous significance the world is indebted to Chris- 
tianity for it. Paul, than whom there never was a 
greater or truer interpreter of the Christ, was the first 
to record how the race was bound up with Adam 
and Adam with the race, that the good or evil of the 



236 RIGHT LIFE. 



one was the good or evil of all ; and thence also how 
Christ was bound up with humanity and humanity 
with Christ, so that the good of Him was its good, 
and that to be linked to Him in fellowship with His 
purposes, work, and mission is to serve God in the 
service of man, effecting not only individual and 
transient good, but at the same time swelling the 
everlasting blessedness of the immense universe of 
holy principalities and powers. Here was a grander, 
truer, and more effective socialism than socialistic 
philosophy ever dreamed, and which lives to con- 
dition and bless the world in all the relations, activ- 
ities, and affections of human life as nothing else 
ever did or ever can. The original and true social- 
ism had its revelation in Jesus Christ. The age of 
humanity began with him.* 

* " If society, apart from the Church, is more kindly and humane 
than in heathen times, this is due to the work of Christ on the hearts 
of men. The era of * humanity ' is the era of the incarnation. 
The sense of human brotherhood, the acknowledgment of the 
sacredness of human rights, the recognition of that particular stock 
of rights which appertains to every human being, is a creation of 
Christian teaching. It has radiated from the heart of the Christian 
Church into the society of the outer world. Christianity is the power 
which first gradually softened slavery, and is now finally abolishing 
it. Christianity has proclaimed the dignity of poverty, and has in- 
sisted on the claims of the poor, with a success proportioned to the 
sincerity which has welcomed her doctrines among the different peo- 
ples of Christendom. The hospital is an invention of Christian 
philanthropy ; the active charity of the Church of the fourth century 
forced into the Greek language a word for which paganism had no 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST 237 

III. And with this came also the revelation of a 
new power for the spiritual regeneration and renewal 
of man, to create out of humanity a new lump and a 
new kingdom. Christ Himself was the new-creating 
Word put forth into the bosom of our race to work 
upon its alienated and warring atoms, and by the 
transforming power of grace to evolve a new society 
to live and act from and for Him as an organ of 
accretion to gather and fashion a renovated genera- 
tion to share and shine with Him in the glory and 
blessedness of the great Father's love. The process 

occasion. The degradation of woman in the pagan world has been 
exchanged for a position of special privilege and honor accorded to 
her by the Christian nations. The sensualism which paganism mis- 
took for love has been placed under the ban of all true Christian 
feeling, and in Christendom love is now the purest of moral im- 
pulses; it is the tenderest, the noblest, the most refined of the move- 
ments of the soul. The old, the universal natural feeling of bitter 
hostility between races, nations, and classes of men is denounced by 
Christianity. The spread of Christian truth inevitably breaks down 
the ferocities of national prejudice and prepares the world for that 
cosmopolitanism which, we are told, is its most probable future. In- 
ternational law had no real existence until the nations, taught by 
Christ, had begun to feel the bond of brotherhood. And if we are 
sorrowfully reminded that the prophecy of a world-wide peace within 
the limits of Christ's kingdom has not yet been realized, if Christian 
lands, in our day as before, are reddened by streams of Christian 
blood, yet the utter disdain of the plea of right, the high-handed and 
barbarous savagery which marked the wars of heathendom, have 
given way to sentiments on which justice can at least obtain a hear- 
ing, and which compassion and generosity, drawing their inspiration 
from the Cross, have at times raised to the level of chivalry." — Lid- 
don's Bampton Lectures, pp. 130, 131. 



238 RIGHT LIFE. 



was and is to work upon individual souls from within 
outward, from the individual to the many, from the 
units to the general mass, thus creating and assem- 
bling an elect and new community of which He is 
the Centre and pervading Soul. For this Christ came 
and wrought and taught and died and rose again, 
and sent the Holy Ghost and commissioned His 
ministers and appointed His ordinances. The same 
have also always proved efficient to their end wher- 
ever and whenever hearts have been open to receive 
the presentation. And as the result a veritable king- 
dom of heaven and city of God has grown up in the 
world, present in all the ages since, serving as the 
vehicle of renewing grace to the children of men, 
giving to history a new and independent theme, and 
ever working toward the grand consummation when 
it shall be on earth as it is in heaven. 

The beginning was very humble and ver\^ small. 
Christ Himself was poor and friendless, born in a 
stable, reared in a lowly tradesman's home, known 
as a village carpenter, without the learning of the 
schools, without earthly patronage — a houseless 
wanderer among the villages of Galilee, not having 
where to lay His head. From the shores of Gcn- 
nesaret, from the fishermen's boats, from the receipt 
of custom, from the commonest walks o{ life, He 
called a few men whom the world despised, and 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST. 239 

made of these His apostles the heralds of a new 
faith and the builders of a new humanity. Scarce 
has there ever been an enterprise that promised so 
little or that started out with less earthly prospect 
of success. Celsus, the first literary assailant of our 
faith, sneered contemptuously at these early heralds 
of Christianity. " See," said he, " what a set of men 
these Christians are ! The teachers of our noble 
philosophies in our academies are cultivated gentle- 
men, acquainted with the best thoughts of the best 
thinkers, and able to give them fit because elegant 
expression ; but these Christian preachers, why they 
are fishermen and publicans and weavers and cob- 
blers, the porters that stand on our quays and run 
on our errands — ignorant Jews, illiterate Greeks, the 
veriest barbarians, enthusiasts without the gift of 
refined thought or cultured speech." Accept his 
statement, and what then ? Why, then his sneer 
becomes an unconscious witness to the regenerating, 
illuminating, and energizing power of Christ. What 
Celsus held impossible and absurd to count on from 
such men, nevertheless did come to pass, and a thou- 
sand-fold more. These despised men became far 
grander. and mightier in the world's history than 
any of his academicians ; more powerful to teach 
the children of men, possessed of ideas of God, of 
man, of society, and of state sublimer and more 



240 RIGHT LIFE. 



commanding than Plato ever imagined or Solon 
ever dreamed ; winning more splendid conquests 
than ever dawned on the soul of Alexander or 
Caesar, building a city transcendentally nobler in 
ideal and incomparably grander in history than the 
city Athene loved and shielded or that which 
Romulus founded and Jove guided to imperial 
dominion; yea, shaking even the gods and god- 
desses of Greece and Rome out of their heavens, 
never again to be restored. To make these men out 
of what they were into what they became was a 
w^ork of power so unprecedented and divine as to 
demonstrate the presence of a new-creating energy 
revealed and put in force by Jesus Christ. The call- 
ing of them, and the making of them what they 
became, were virtually the regeneration of man, and 
their change the ultimate renovation of the world 
— the re-creation of humanity. 

And to illustrate what has actually come into the 
life, history, and condition of the world by means of 
the men whom Jesus thus called, commissioned, and 
equipped as His ambassadors, let us suppose, with 
an eminent living Scotch divine, from whom I have 
appropriated some of these thoughts and statements,* 
that Christ were entirely dropped out of history, 

* Fairbairn's City of CoJ, whose eloquent pages have been freely 
used in the preparation of this lecture, and to which obligation is 
gratefully acknowledged. 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST 24 1 

with all the historic personages He has called and 
fashioned by His Word and Spirit, and all that has 
been wrought by them upon the generations of man- 
kind. What to-day would be the result ? The 
mightiest civilizing agencies are persons, and the 
mightiest civilizing persons have been Christians, 
moved to their activities and sustained in them by 
what comes through faith in Jesus and participation 
of the quickening powers of His Word and Spirit. 
No man in the ancient world, be he poet or 
philosopher, warrior or statesman, did as much 
to create the permanent humaner and higher ele- 
ments of our civilization as Peter, John, and 
Paul — men altogether obscure and commonplace 
till touched by the creative hand of Christ. The 
men who have most thoroughly understood Jesus 
and drunk the deepest of His Spirit have been 
centres of the noblest dynamic and moral forces in 
history. Think of those great Christian men whom 
Christ first commissioned, and of those who came 
after the apostles — the Clements, Irenaeus, Athana- 
sius, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and numerous 
others. Or select only a single century, the six- 
teenth, which opened the gates to what has made 
our modern times — the century which laid the foun- 
dations of our freedom, vindicated the rights of rea- 
son, the supremacy of conscience, the duty of intel- 

16 



242 RIGHT LIFE. 



ligence to seek and know God and His truth for 
itself, and enfranchised the oppressed peoples of the 
earth. What made that century so conspicuous and 
pre-eminent in the bringing forth of what has most 
of all conditioned our present era ? Not Leo X., 
the vaunting pagan disguised as a pope of Chris- 
tendom ; not Charles V., heir of so many dynasties, 
monarch of so many lands ; not Francis I., losing 
all but honor at Pavia, perhaps without honor to 
lose ; not Henry VHI., self-willed, sensual, disown- 
ing popes and burning bishops that he might marry' 
whom he willed, though titled as Defender of the 
Faith ! The age owed little to these men. The 
most they did was to oppose the tide of new life 
which then rose, and to mar its character as far as 
they could. The mightiest maker of that period 
and what the world has inherited from it was the 
lone monk of Wittenberg, whose soul God opened 
to His everlasting truth, who dared to stand firm 
upon it against popes and emperors and kings, who 
taught the Scriptures to speak German, and made 
that tongue the language of learning for the last 
three hundred years, and who stands as the great 
prophet of these modern centuries. Along with his 
occur such names as those of Melanchthon, Zwingli, 
Calvin, and John Knox. These and those who stood 
with them for the emancipated evangely of God 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST. 243 

were the men who made the sixteenth century. 
But who made the men ? In whose name, in whose 
strength, by obedience to whose will and Word, did 
they live and act ? Whence came their inspiration 
and their guidance but straight from Him who was 
born at Bethlehem and crucified on Calvary ? Abol- 
ish these men and the glorious sixteenth century 
loses all its grand significance ; abolish Christ and 
you abolish these men. 

Yet what is true of that period is true of all the 
Christian centuries. Subtract from the world all 
the Christian personalities and the ideas that reigned 
in and lived through them, and you have nothing 
left but the struggle of brutal passions of men savage 
through ambition and lust of power. Take away 
Christ and the potencies which He has put in force 
in and upon mankind, and you dry up the source of 
all Christian personalities and ideas, and leave man 
to go his old blind way, ungladdened by faith in 
Heaven, uncheered by the hope of an ultimately re- 
deemed humanity — a poor, disconsolate, helpless, 
wandering orphan, without a Father and without a 
home. 

IV. And yet, again, Christ has authenticated a 
written revelation for the illumination and gfuidance 
of all who desire a right knowledge of Him. He 
Himself wrote no books. He left behind Him no 



244 RIGHT LIFE. 



formally elaborated system of any kind. He dic- 
tated a model of prayer, instituted two simple ordi- 
nances, and appointed the preaching of the truths 
concerning Him to all nations ; but He formulated 
no ritual and ordained no fixed polity. And yet He 
authenticated a sacred manual for His followers, out 
of the contents of which, by the help of the ever- 
present Spirit of truth sent by Him from the Father, 
they might gather whatever should be necessary 
" for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
tion in righteousness." 

The Jewish people had a collection of sacred 
books, now called the Old Testament, which they 
held to be from God and the most authoritative 
records of the will and ways of God in human pos- 
session. These holy books Christ authenticated as 
indeed what they claimed to be and what the ancient 
saints and prophets held them to be. We need no 
other evidence of the inspiration and sacred author- 
ity of the Jewish Scriptures than the attestation 
which Jesus has given them. He quoted from them 
as witnesses to the truth of God. He referred to 
the most marvellous records in them as unmistak- 
ably true as they stand written. He directed the 
cavilling Jews to these books, saying, " Search the 
Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
and they are they which testify of me." In all qucs- 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST. 245 

tions of dispute His appeal was to these holy writ- 
ings. In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus 
He spoke of " Moses and the prophets " as contain- 
ing as complete divine instruction as one from an- 
other world could give. And in the teaching of His 
disciples, " beginning at Moses and all the prophets, 
He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the 
things concerning Himself" The Old Testament 
contains but two fundamental ideas : Law and Prom- 
ise — the Law broken and holding all men in con- 
demnation as sinners, and the Promise of One to 
come who should fulfil the Law, come between of- 
fenders and condemnation, open the prison-doors for 
those in bondage for their offences, and bring in an 
everlasting reign of righteousness and peace. Jesus 
claimed that Law to be from God, and that He had 
come according to Promise to fulfil both the Law 
and the Prophets. The Old Testament He therefore 
made the divine textbook of authority concerning 
Himself and the preparation of His way as the great 
Messiah of ancient promise and hope. 

But Jesus authenticated the New Testament as 
well as the Old— the one as the inspired Record of 
what had been and was to be, and the other as the 
inspired Record of what came to pass in fulfilment 
of the Old, that faith might have a fixed and solid 
basis in accomplished facts to which it might ever 



246 RIGHT LIFE. 



recur and on which ever to rest. True, there was 
not yet a Hne of the New Testament written when 
He died, but He had gathered around Him twelve 
witnesses of all He did and said, and promised when 
He left the world that He would send upon them the 
Holy Ghost, whose organs they should be, who 
should guide them into all truth, who should inspire 
them with what they should speak, who should show 
them such things as they had not fully taken in from 
Him, who should be resident in them as an ever- 
present divine power influencing all their ministra- 
tions in His name, and who should lift them also 
into a foresight of things to come. He thus pledged 
divine inspiration to them, so that what they preached, 
taught, and wrote concerning Him and His kingdom, 
and hence the entire New Testament, stands authen- 
ticated as an inspired Record of the truth as it is in 
Jesus. And thus the whole volume of the Scriptures 
stands acknowledged and indorsed by Christ Him- 
self as the grand and only guide and manual of in- 
struction for the Church of Jesus, out of which, by 
the still-present aid of the Holy Ghost, *' the man of 
God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all 
good works." 

The revelation in and through Jesus Christ accord- 
ingly embraces all that is written in our holy books, 
of which also He is the chief substance and the per- 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST. 247 

petual theme. He is the personal Word, of whom 
they are the written Word, that through the one v/e 
may know and understand the other, and thus be 
made wise unto faith and everlasting life. 

Such, then, is the revelation which we have in and 
through Jesus Christ. The God of all grace is a 
God of a beatitude so perfect that it created man for 
happiness and blessed communion with itself, and 
could not allow misery to live without ample pro- 
vision for its relief The God of creation is a God 
whose deepest nature is love, and who could not so 
forget the creatures He had formed as to leave them 
to their sin so long as there remained a righteous 
possibility of their recovery. He was too perfect a 
being to permit the permanence of moral disorder 
and the wretchedness it entails, or to allow His uni- 
verse to become the scene of wrecked and ruined 
ends. So came the grand remedial purpose mani- 
fested in Jesus, to bring the wealth of the divine 
nature into the poverty of the human, to create in 
the breast of alienated man the filial heart, to lift him 
out of his sin and condemnation into conscious and 
grateful sonship with God through the atoning love 
of the only-begotten of the Father. The coming of 
the Christ made new all man's views of God and all 
the relations between the two. In and through Jesus 
there was laid open to us the true Fatherhood of 



248 RIGHT LIFE. 



God and the true sonship of man, showing what 
man was made to be, what he may still become, and 
what movements of Heaven are being made in order 
that he may not fail of his intended destiny. An 
idea of divine love and goodness was thus created 
and discovered to man which cannot help but melt, 
subdue, win, and save wherever there are hearts to 
entertain it. A zone of new and blessed light has 
been pushing its way around this old earth of ours 
since Jesus wore its elements upon Him, breathed its 
air, and saturated its dust with His tears and blood. 
Our wasted humanity has pulsated with a new spirit, 
has tasted the exhilaration of new hopes, since God 
manifest in the flesh set upon it the seal of His re- 
deeming love. Millions on millions of souls, accept- 
ing pardon that they may live to righteousness, now 
joyfully exclaim, " We love Him because He first 
loved us." Old things past away and all things 
become new ; God no terror more, but a good and 
tender Father; the future no horror of great dark- 
ness now, but a blessed home of sympathy and 
light ; man a brother to be served, and not an enemy 
to be watched and spoiled ; salvation a reality ; the 
soul certified of God's everlasting truth ; a balm o{ 
healing found ; a life eternal felt in its renewing pul- 
sations ; society modified by the Spirit of grace; and 
the world itself floating amid its sister orbs with 



THE REVELATION BY CHRIST 249 

conscious affinities with the Infinite ; — these are 
some of the glorious possessions brought by Him 
who manifested the Father's Name to the men given 
Him out of the world. 

Shall we, then, reject and disown the Christ? 
Myriad voices of the purest and noblest that have 
ever lived come out from the graves to answer " No!' 
A long procession of the mightiest intellects and 
most potent workers for the good of man — Fathers, 
Schoolmen, Reformers, statesmen, philosophers, and 
divines, from Paul down to this present — presses for- 
ward to answer " No. It was from Him we had our 
brightest light, and it was out of love to Him we 
labored, sacrificed, and suffered." A vast choir of 
the greatest poets and singers of the world, with 
hearts and lyres attuned to His praises, pour out 
their answer, '^ No!' The grand old painters, mu- 
sicians, and architects who made our modern art, 
and made it so full of light and tenderness and love, 
feeling how much their inspiration depended on the 
new-creating grace in Him, shout their indignant 
protest, " No!' And unnumbered souls, without 
hope against their sins but in His blood, cry out in 
tears and agony of entreaty, " No — no — no ; for He 
alone is our salvation ! He is the same yesterday, 
to-day, and for ever. What He was eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, what He was to our fathers, He is 



250 RIGHT LIFE. 



now to us, and will be to our children from genera- 
tion to generation. He is the outbeaming of the 
eternal Godhead, the supreme Revelation, the infal- 
lible Teacher, the Healer and Pardoner of sin, the 
Opener of the kingdom of heaven to all believers. 
Yea, He is the everlasting Son of the Father — our 
Lord who died for us, our God who ever lives to 
redeem, help, and glorify us !" 

Dear friends, enter into this faith, and when life's 
burdens press, and that solemn hour comes when 
human help is vain, you will not repent having the 
arm of an almighty Saviour on which to lean. May 
He be our Portion and our Consolation both now 
and for ever ! And glory be to the Father, and to 
the Son, and to the Holy Ghost ; as it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without 
end. Amen. 



LECTURE NINTH. 

Implteti i^esults. 

Rom. 8:31: What shall we then say to these things ? 

IT seems to me, dear friends, that we have by this 
time reached conclusions of very great moment, 
on which it becomes us to spend a few thoughts 
before advancing farther. 

On the basis of fair reasoning and facts which no 
one can gainsay we have been brought to what enters 
most essentially into right thinking and right life. 

To explain the enigma of our being and of the 
universe, to satisfy the tragic search and ceaseless 
outcry of the human soul, and to maintain a just 
consistency with ourselves, we are compelled to 
admit that there is a God. 

From the peculiarities of our nature and surround- 
ings in this world we have seen something of the 
deep need of faith in God in order to true spiritual 
consolation and happiness, and how near, natural, 
and inrooted with all the elements of life religion is. 

From the incapacity of unaided human reason to 

give us any sure and authoritative teaching to serve 

251 



252 RIGHT LIFE. 



as a guide to faith, righteousness, and a satisfying 
hope, we have seen how desirable, important, and 
necessary it is that we should have some adequate 
and certain revelation or word from Heaven. 

From the ancient Creation Record, which the 
latest science, as far as science can reach, has proven 
to be true, and which could have come only from 
some supernatural showing, as also from the trans- 
cendent and world-conditioning story of Jesus, which 
can by no possibility be accounted for, either in ideal 
or fact, except on some supernatural interference of 
God Himself, we have found two demonstrative 
proofs that God has spoken — spoken to make known 
to man His eternal power and Godhead, to acquaint 
us with His sublime perfections, love, fatherhood, 
and gracious will and purposes, and to afford us the 
requisite information for the adjustment of ourselves 
to Him in hope of a blessed immortality. 

And on these two great pillars alone, without ref- 
erence to the many other buttresses of the truth on 
this point, we have found the whole fabric of the 
Christian revelation amply sustained and irrefragibly 
established. 

"What shall we then say to these things?" 

I. If there is any solidity whatever in the conchi- 
sions which we thus have reached, we are here fur- 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 253 

nished with a test by which to free ourselves from 
many dangerous speculative errors and false systems 
of thinking. 

We must then say that atheism of every species is 
a lie, absurd in principle, destructive in tendency, 
and the height of spiritual immorality ; for here is 
the clear testimony that there is an infinite, self- 
existent, eternal, and almighty God, from whose 
creative activity heaven and earth and time and all 
things took their beginning and have their being, 
and that only " the fool hath said in his heart, There 
is no God." 

We must then also say that polytheism^ or the 
worship of many gods, is a monstrous perversion of 
the truth, thrusting other things into the place of 
the one true and only God, giving the gloiy of the 
everlasting One to another, and besotting the soul 
with all kinds of degrading abominations. " For 
though there be that are called gods, whether in 
heaven or in earth (as there be gods many and lords 
many), to us there is but one God, the Father, of 
whom are all things, and we in Him ;" " The Lord 
our God is one Lord ;" " There is one God ; and 
there is none other but He." 

And with this must go the dualism of the Zoroas- 
trians, of the Greek philosophers, and of the Gnostic 
sects, which conceives of two infinities, self-existent 



254 RIGHT LIFE, 



and at eternal war, as a dangerous delusion wholly 
irreconcilable with the truth. 

Furthermore, we must say that pantheism, which 
makes everything God and utterly confounds Him 
with His works, is a false philosophy ; for here the 
independent existence of God before and above all 
things is pointedly asserted, and presented to our con- 
templation as an eternal, self-conscious, and free per- 
sonality, never absent from His works, indeed, but 
not immanent in them nor consubstantial with them. 
Nay, pantheism, with all its talk of God, is, after all, 
a mere form of atheism. 

The same also we must say o{ materialism and every 
form of that philosophy which asserts the independ- 
ent eternity of matter and derives everything from 
it ; for here the clear enunciation is of one, infinite, 
spiritual Intelligence, absolute in His being, greater 
than the universe, and on whom all material forms 
depend. 

The same must likewise be said of all those deistic 
and rationalistic systems which admit a God, but 
separate between Him and His active presence with 
Nature, and treat the Creator as if He had abdicated 
in favor of His own dead laws, or were so impotent, 
indifferent, or withdrawn into the far depths of His 
infinity that we can only ask the sun about His wis- 
dom and question the sea about His love, while 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 255 



prayer to Him is no more than to entreat the hurri- 
cane to help us in our needs, the pestilence to excuse 
our frailties, or the earthquake to forgive us our sins; 
for here the showing is that, while Nature is not 
God, He is nevertheless in living and potent con- 
nection with it, " upholding all things by the word 
of His power," encouraging all to call upon Him in 
every time of trouble, and assuring us that not even 
a sparrow can fall or a hair drop without Him. 

n. Again, we must say that we have here reached 
the sublimest and most consistent philosophy ever 
presented to the human understanding. 

Having found a living centre of the universe in the 
one, infinite, self-existent, and eternal God, we are 
assured of its unity and are enabled to account satis- 
factorily for all that is. This is a philosophy which 
presents God, as we would think a God must be, 
transcendently beyond the grasp of all human 
faculties, and yet essential love, delighting to have 
creatures to know and enjoy Him, happy in creating 
and caring for them as a Father, too righteous to en- 
dure the reign of wrong, and too loving to let man 
perish in sin while a righteous possibility of saving 
him remained. This contemplates the world as the 
free and loving act of true paternal love, the work 
of a wise Creator, who maintains and orders all 
things in righteous goodness and wisdom, for whose 



256 RIGHT LIFE. 



kind attention nothing is too remote or small, who 
cherishes the whole race of man with a special ten- 
derness, and who has built this world and made it 
alive with His wonderful activities for the working 
out of vast plans of providence, discipline, and ulti- 
mate redemption, " that in the dispensation of the 
fulness of times He might gather together in one all 
things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which 
are on earth." 

This also gives us the most ennobling views of 
man, his origin, his nature, his life on earth, and the 
possibilities of his being, that have ever been con- 
ceived. Created after a manner and to a model of 
excellence differing from that of all other earthly 
creatures, stamped with the intellectual, moral, and 
official image of his Maker, and invested with a 
grand lordship over this world, we thus behold man 
coming into being with all the marks and lineaments 
of a heavenly sonship, which, though since marred 
by the calamitous inroads of sin, still holds him pre- 
cious and near to the great Father heart as the object 
of redeeming love. Developed into varied branches 
and myriad individualities, there still remain the or- 
ganic oneness of blood and collective responsibility, 
making the individual units all the more responsible 
as brethren of one fellowship in which each is to live 
for all and all for each, in the practice of love, char- 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 257 

ity, and self-surrender for the mutual good as the 
essence of noblest service and purest virtue. 

Here also we have the best explanation of univer- 
sal history, whether of nations, states, or individuals. 
We learn from the divine Records that one idea has 
governed the whole ongoing life of the race — to wit, 
the coming, planting, and manifestation of the king- 
dom of God, which has its foundation and centre in 
Jesus Christ. To this all the ages are so evidently 
marshalled, and to this all generations of mankind, 
whether consciously or unconsciously, so manifestly 
march, that a skeptical philosopher of history unex- 
pectedly alighting upon it said, " With this idea there 
is no problem in history which I cannot solve." In 
Christ all the lines of ancient history meet, and from 
Him all the lines of subsequent history proceed.* 
He is the centre of attraction to all the individual 
subjects of grace, and in Him each individual, as 
well as the aggregate of humanity, finds its gravi- 
tating point and destination. The light, life, and love 
of God in human history, the experiences and activ- 
ities of universal man, with all time and eternity, are 

* " As Christ stands at the end of the ancient world, so He stands 
also at the beginning of the new. He is at once the ripest fruit of 
history before, and the fertile seed of history after, His coming. He 
is the turning-point in the biography of our race, the glory of the 
past and the hope of the future." — Schaff's Christ and Christianity , 
p. 40. 

17 



258 RIGHT LIFE. 



SO bound up in one immense system, and so com- 
pletely hold together in Christ as its unifying Centre, 
that without Him there is no common principle on 
which its wide-ranging phenomena can be adequately 
explained. He is the only Key to unlock all its 
mysteries. But in Him they are unlocked. Even 
Napoleon could see and say, " Let the divine Christ 
be rejected, and the whole world is an enigma. Let 
Him be accepted, and we possess a wonderful expla- 
nation of the history of man." * 

Thus, then, we have reached the only philosophy 
in which we can securely rest. 

ni. Again, we must say that we have here au- 
thenticated for our use and profit a manual of faith 
and life constituting the most wonderful and most 
valuable book ever found in the hands of mortal 
man. 

On the basis of its own internal and external evi- 
dences this book sufficiently proves itself to be from 
God and a veritable Record of divine revelations. 
It is a literary aerolite, wearing in all its features and 
substance the marks of its superhuman source. I 
have not entered upon the consideration of these, 
because we already have all sufficiently authenticated 
by Jesus Christ, the sinless and only-begotten Son 

■* Quoted from Be >i muds M'tnoirs in Luth;\rilt"s Fuu.ianwntal 
Truths, p. 355. 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 259 

of God, who is Himself, as we have seen, the super- 
lative and infallible revelation of the Father for the 
bringing of men to eternal life. What we have as- 
certained in this discussion concerning Him gives us 
the entire Scriptures as the Record of the revelations 
of God, written by divine inspiration, and meant to 
serve as a light amid the darkness of this world, to 
which it is of the utmost moment for us to take 
heed. 

It is the oldest of books. Its histories go back to 
the beginning of the race. Its first grand sections 
were read in sacred assemblies nearly one thou- 
sand years before Thales, Pythagoras, and Confucius. 
David sung and Solomon preached before Homer 
recited his verses to the Greeks or Lycurgus gave 
laws to Lacedaemon. Dozens of its particular docu- 
ments were complete a hundred years before Athens 
had a public library, and numbers of the ancient 
prophets had ended their messages before Socrates 
and Plato propounded their philosophies. 

It is a book most marvellous in its composition. 
The revelation of God in history has been a cumu- 
lative process. The Scriptures are from about forty 
different writers, with fifteen hundred or more years 
between the first and the last. These writers are 
from every order in life, reared amid widely-differing 
civilizations, and of every variety of temperament, 



26o RIGHT LIFE, 



gifts, degrees of culture, and kinds of surroundings. 
They include scholars, judges, priests, poets, kings, 
statesmen, herdsmen, prophets, fishermen, tax-gath- 
erers, physicians — high and low, rich and poor. 
They wrote in different languages — in archaic He- 
brew, later Hebrew, Chaldaic, and in Greek. They 
wrote from places as remote as their loca ion in time. 
From the centre of Asia, from the sands and cliffs 
of Arabia, from the hillsides of Canaan, from the 
palaces of Jewish monarchs, from the courts of the 
Jewish temple, from the homes and schools of Pal- 
estinian prophets, from Babylon, from the banks of 
Chebar and the Hiddikel, from the prisons of Rome, 
and from a lone isle in the ^gean Sea — the different 
portions of this book have come. Every kind of 
writing is included — history, biography, lofty poetr}% 
didactic prose, speeches, letters, songs, descriptive 
visions, proverbs, parables, monologues, interlocu- 
tions, preceptive utterances, emotional idyls, eucha- 
ristic odes, and prophetic ecstasies. Nearly every 
section was produced under the special pressure of 
its time and circumstances to meet special exigences, 
to voice the mind and will and truth of God for 
some particular want, with no thought in the writers 
of forming such a compilation as was the final result. 
Each builded better than he knew. Though know- 
ing themselves to be moved and used of Heaven for 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 26 1 

their immediate work, there was neither design nor 
thought in them looking to any final connection of 
their several productions. Two, if not three, distinct 
dispensations are represented, the one draped in gar- 
ments greatly different from those of the other. 

And yet in its deepest substance the book is one, 
unique and self-consistent in import and in aim. Its 
theme is God and man — the one in action for the 
giving of salvation to the other, the living centre of 
which is Christ. The Old Testament is the substra- 
tum and scaffolding for the New, and the New is the 
preliminary fulfilment and flower of the Old ; while 
a still grander consummation yet impends as the 
sublime outcome and crown of both alike. The 
world created and man under the calamity of sin, 
the next leaf tells of a Seed of the woman to bruise 
the Serpent's head, and all the rest relates to the de- 
velopment and coming of that Seed — what He did, 
what He is doing, and what He is yet to do. The 
number of the books is sixty-four, the number of the 
writers is perhaps forty, and the period of their writ- 
ing embraces fifteen centuries ; but their subject is 
one, their presentations one, and all their productions 
together one great Record of the one great revelation 
of the one God, for the one end — the redemption 
of our fallen race. Never was there a single book, 
written by a single hand, the product of a single 



262 RIGHT LIFE. 



mind, more thoroughly harmonious throughout than 
this with its many authors, in their many ages, un- 
der their many individual diversities. And this one 
fact alone stamps the Bible with the insignia of 
miracle. 

It is also the most original and inexhaustible of 
books. It speaks as from the source of truth. It 
leans on no other books. It depends on no reasonings 
or discoveries of man. And it is withal completely 
free from the blundering errors prevalent in the times 
in which it was written. If it speaks what is other- 
wise ascertainable, it speaks in its own independent 
way. It moves in realms untrod by any mere human 
genius, and is composedly at home in regions where 
the sublimest imaginings of man can hardly send a 
guess. It treats of all the mightiest questions related 
to its purpose and necessary to its end, and always 
with the familiarity, comprehensiveness, confidence, 
and dignity of thorough mastery of all it touches. 
Few books will stand three readings without becom- 
ing insipid, empty, and uninteresting : this can be 
read a thousand times, while the light increases and 
the attraction strengthens the more its mysteries 
are studied. Human books are like dipped water 
standing in buckets, where it soon grows stale ; the 
book of God is like those great fountains of the 
Jordan which ever gush with inexhaustible freshness 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 263 

and beauty, the more admired the oftener they are 
seen.* 

Chateaubriand has noted that the most sacred 
books of the nations — the Zend Avesta of the Parsis, 
the Vedas of the Brahmans, the Sanskrit poems, the 
writings of Confucius, the Edda of the Scandinavians, 
the Koran of the Turks, and other similar produc- 
tions or compilations — contain but little else than 
the ordinary chain of human ideas, resembling each 
other in tone and thought, and embracing much that 
science has exploded and sound reason pronounces 
absurd ; while the Bible stands alone, wiih nothing 
to compare with it and unimpeachably true to all 
known truth. There is here "a richness of concep- 
tion, a universality of spirit, a range and amplitude 
of thought, a power of illustration, a truthfulness to 
nature, an insight into character, a familiarity with 
the unseen and the eternal, a fund of information, a 
variety of incident, and a consciousness of authority 
in every utterance, which give to all the words and 

* " The most learned, acute, and diligent student cannot, in the 
longest life, obtain an entire knowledge of this one volume. The 
more deeply he works the mine, the richer and more abundant he 
finds the ore; new light continually beams from this source of heav- 
enly knowledge to direct the conduct and to illustrate the work of 
God and the ways of men ; and he will at last leave the world con- 
fessing that the more he studied the Scriptures, the fuller conviction 
he had of his own ignorance and of their inestimable value." — Sh 
Walter Scott. 



264 RIGHT LIFE. 



images of the Bible the charm of originaHty, the 
impress of the highest gifts, and the force of an end- 
less life." 

Sir William Jones, from his vast knowledge of 
Oriental literature, says : '* I have regularly and at- 
tentively perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of the 
opinion that this volume, independently of its divine 
origin, contains more true sublimity, more exquisite 
beauty, more pure morality, more important history, 
and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can 
be collected from all other books in whatever age or 
language they may have been written." And even 
Rousseau, to the disgust of his fellow-unbelievers, 
felt himself obliged to say : '' The majesty of the 
Scriptures strikes me with admiration. The works 
of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction, 
how mean, how contemptible, in comparison !" 

It is also the most potential and creative book in 
the woi-ld. It is a greater power than any earthly 
king, conqueror, or dominion ever was. For a 
thousand years it has been the manual of Faith 
and Life, of supreme authority, to the best and 
most widely extended society existing among men. 
It has been the handmaid of the most salutary 
revolutions that have occurred in histon'. It has 
been the chief conduit of the grace which has be- 
gotten the noblest faith, the purest virtue, the sub- 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 26$ 

limest manhood, the most loving charity, the tender- 
est kindness, and the worthiest human saintship that 
ever adorned the earth. 

Nor is there another book which has awakened 
so much interest and attention through the course 
of the ages, or that has exerted, or is now exerting, 
so much influence on the opinions, behefs, hearts, 
wills, deeds, persuasions, and aspirations of man- 
kind. There is not another book of which so many 
myriads of copies, in all tongues, have been, and 
still are being, issued, read, and studied by high and 
low, learned and unlearned, rich and poor, old and 
young, civilized and uncivilized. There is not an- 
other book so vastly and incessantly preached, com- 
mented on, expounded, treated of, attacked, and vin- 
dicated. Full half the literature, study, and oratory 
of the whole earth stands in some relation to this 
book, and owes to it its creation or its preservation. 
There is no other book that has gathered around it 
an interest or love so intense, that has been so fiercely 
fought, that has been so earnestly and voluminously 
defended — no other book for which such multitudes 
of people have contended, suffered, and died, or 
would cheerfully die to-day, rather than consent to 
have it stricken from existence. Few of those who 
prize it most esteem and use it as they should; but, 
taking the facts as they are, there is no book at all 



266 RIGHT LIFE. 



to be compared with this book in the interest, atten- 
tion, and studious reverence it commands, or in its 
sway over the conscience, condition, soul, and activ- 
ities of man. It stands out among all other books 
like a giant in a world of pigmies, like the sun 
among the planets of the solar system.* 

Yea, above all books it is the charter of our dear- 
est hopes and the spring of our most precious spir- 
itual consolations. It tells of God and of His blessed 
Son, of earthly duties and of heavenly rest. But 

'^ " This collection of books has taken such hold of the world 
as no other. The literature of Greece, which goes up like incense 
from that land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half the influence 
of this book from a nation despised alike in ancient and modern 
times. It is read in all the ten thousand pulpits of our land. In all 
the temples of Christendom is its voice lifted up week by week. The 
sun never sets on its glowing page. It goes equally to the cottage of 
the plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into the lit- 
erature of the scholar and colors the talk of the street. It enters 
men's closets, mingles in all the grief and cheerfulness of life. The 
Bible attends men in sickness when the fever of the world is on 
them. The aching head finds a softer pillow when the Bible lies 
beneath. The mariner, escaping from shipwreck, seizes it the first 
of his treasures and keeps it sacred to God, It blesses us when we 
are born, gives names to half Christendom, rejoices with us, has 
sympathy for our mourning, tempers our grief to finer issues. It is 
the better part of our sermons. It lifts man above himself. Our 
best of uttered prayers are from its storied speech, wherewith our 
fathers and the patriarchs prayed. The timid man, about to wake 
from his dream of life, looks through the glass of Scripture and his 
eye grows bright ; he does not fear to stand alone, to tread the way 
unknown and distant, to take the death-angel by the hand and bid 
farewell to wife and babes and home.'' — Theo. Parkers Discourse 
of Matters pertaining to Religion, pp. 239 seq. 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 267 

for what we have in it we should be like the Ephe- 
sians before Paul came to make known to them a 
higher God and a nobler Saviour than their '' great 
Diana" — even "aliens from the commonwealth of 
Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, 
having no hope and without God in the world." 
Without this we are only mysterious waifs of being, 
not knowing whence we came, what we are, for what 
purposes we are here, to whom we belong, or whither 
we are going — lost travellers in a world of doubt, 
dreaming of home and truth and God, but never 
finding either — denizens of a universe of mindless 
and inexorable laws, struggling with irresistible 
forces, haunted by ghostly imaginings, and ever in 
danger of being crushed to nothingness in a dread 
machine worn by the dust of its own grinding ! 
There must be mind and heart and soul and wisdom 
and saving religion in the Bible, or such millions of 
people could not possibly find in it their lawgiver, 
prophet, friend, and dearest companion of life. Some 
of earth's greatest institutions are built on it, and 
such things cannot stand on chaff. Nothing but the 
most solid mountain-rock can sustain what rests on 
this immortal book. 

And when the heavy hours of sorrow and bereave- 
ment come, and we hear afar the monotonous foot- 
fall of approaching Death, what is there outside the 



268 RIGHT LIFE. 



teachings of this book to calm and comfort and 
soothe us ? Not the discoveries of science, not the 
schemes of a godless philosophy, not even the sub- 
lime visions of a Dante or the lordly eloquence of a 
Milton, nor anything that this world's orators have 
uttered or this world's poets sung, can serve to com- 
pose the soul or light its passage out of this fading 
life. But when the melody of lyric songs has lost 
its charms, and the music of memory and her siren 
daughters has been brought low, and every other 
voice becomes a mockery, then it is that the treasures 
with which this book is freighted — the Beatitudes 
which Jesus spake to the multitudes as they sat lis- 
tening with breathless interest among the mountain- 
lilies, and the words He uttered as He approached 
His final agony, and the sweet promises He left as 
His legacy to His sorrowing followers, and the pre- 
cious story of His love unto death and victory over 
it for those who put their trust in Him, and His 
everlasting covenant never to leave nor forsake us, — 
come to us as blessed evangels of peace which alone 
have power to compose our departing spirits, shine 
away from them the ugliness of death, and bear them 
on anG["elic arms to the waitincf Paradise of God. 

"Most wondrous Book! Bri^lit candle of tlie Lord! 
Star of eternity ! Only star 
By which the bark of man can navigate 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 269 

The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
Securely!" 

IV. And yet, again, from the high point to which 
we have reasoned ourselves up we must say that an 
almighty, loving, good, and sympathizing Saviour, 
at once the Son of God and the Son of man, has 
come, and now proposes Himself to the fallen and 
alien world — whom it is our supreme business and 
our sublimest privilege to accept, trust in, and de- 
voutly obey. ^ 

We have dwelt somewhat on the transcendent 
picture of His life, upon the unique, superhuman, 
and sovereign splendor of His personality, upon the 
stamp of eternity that appears in His every action 
and in His every utterance, upon the winning love 
of His irresistible tenderness and the transforming 
power of His grace. But no mind of mortal man is 
large enough, lofty enough, noble enough to take in 
the fulness of such clinging friendship joined with 
such sublime independence, such tender patriotism 
with such humanitarian breadth, such passionate 
emotion with such perfect peace, such unapproach- 
able majest}^ with such child-like sweetness, such 
power of Deity with such meekness of human com- 
passion. 

If ever there was a perfect and sinless being in 
human flesh, it was Jesus. His enemies no less than 



270 RIGHT LIFE. 



His friends bear witness to His sinlessness. The 
Jewish Toldoth Jeschu is filled with blasphemies 
against Him, and yet dares charge Him with no sin 
but that He claimed to be the Son of God. " I find 
no fault in this man," said the Roman governor who 
heard the accusations against Him ; " This man hath 
done nothing amiss," witnessed the dying malefactor ; 
" I have betrayed innocent blood," shrieked the mis- 
erable Judas. His most eager accusers stammered 
into self- refuting lies when they sought to make a 
case against Him. The witnesses of His execution 
smote their breasts in reproachful agony and despair 
that such a man should have met such a fate. And 
the heathen centurion posted by His cross exclaimed, 
" Truly this was the Son of God." 

He was a man — a poor, unlearned, and humble 
man. No one denies that. But that He was, fur- 
thermore, a superlatively good and impeccable man 
all sides admit, except that He claimed divinity and 
made Himself an outbirth of God Himself Was 
this a sin ? Any one surely can recognize the un- 
utterable difference and distance between God and a 
mere man. It is not conceivable how any one in his 
senses, however fanatical in his pietism, could think 
himself the Almighty and still persist in making 
himself equal with God amid the depths of nameless 
humiliation and the utter impotence of a suffering 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 2J\ 

martyr. Our nature shrinks revolted and appalled 
at such a case as quite outside the possibilities of 
humanity. Such blasphemy of imposture, such in- 
sanity of self-deception, such fatuity of arrogance 
in one recognized as the wisest, humblest, calmest, 
holiest of the sons of men, is beyond the capacity 
even of the most deluded and depraved. If Christ 
was good at all, then He must be what He claimed 
and testified concerning Himself. There is here no 
middle ground between our adoring devotion and 
our indignant shame. To say that He was a prophet 
and teacher so great that He could address Peter 
and John as " my little children," or that He was 
even a son of God as holy angels are sons of God, 
will not meet the case or satisfy the ever-repeated 
emphasis of His words claiming to be " the Son of 
God," " His only-begotten Son." If Jesus was not 
" very God of very God," as well as man, He was 
not good; and, so far from being a superlative 
prophet and saint, the Jews were right in condemn- 
ing and executing Him as a traitor and blasphemer, 
too wicked to be tolerated, too much of an impostor 
to be respected, or a hallucinated victim of deception 
utterly unworthy of any sane man's following. 

But, over against any such melancholy and Soul- 
chiUing conclusions as these stand the apostolic his- 
tory of Christ's triumphant vindication and the eight- 



2/2 RIGHT LIFE. 



een Christian centuries since of historic attestation 
to the glory of His Person, the truthfulness of His 
claims, and the redemptive power of His gospel. 

How could His few, poor, unlearned, and helpless 
followers, utterly confounded and scattered when 
they saw their Master die, have caused so many 
Jews to accept a martyred Galilean as their Messiah, 
and so many Greeks and Romans to hail a crucified 
Jew as their supreme Lord and God, had not all the 
facts and demonstrations proved that He is verily 
what He said He was, and lived in heavenly domin- 
ion to do what He said He would? 

And, again, how could His Church, starting as it 
did, met by a fanatical Jewish exclusiveness without 
and within, opposed by an enthroned and world-wide 
paganism, confronted by the sword of universal em- 
pire and the sneers and unbelief of its proud philos- 
ophies and lauded superiority of culture, and with 
nothing but the doctrine of the cross and the resur- 
rection — the one an object of indignant horror and 
the other of unbounded scorn — empty all the temples 
under the Roman dominion, vacate its Pantheon, 
conquer its throne, graft a new civilization on its 
peoples, induce the hordes of Northern Europe to 
exchange their warrior deities for the peaceful wor- 
ship of the meek and humble Nazarcnc, and inaugu- 
rate a new era of softening and regenerating powers 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 273 

over the whole world of civilized man, had there 
been no immortal truth and grace of the living God 
in and behind their story ? * 

It is useless to refer to the spread of Mohammed- 
anism as a parallel to the triumphs of the gospel. 
The conquests of Mohammedanism were made by 
an unrelenting sword, amid blood, butchery, and un- 
bounded devastation, like that which the Goths and 
Vandals wrought upon the degenerate and effete 
Roman world ; the conquests of Christianity were 
the bloodless conquests of human hearts — the con- 
quests of goodness and the convictions of truth, 
whose heralds meekly submitted to all forms of 

^ " The gospel possesses a secret virtue," said Napoleon Bona- 
parte — " a something which works powerfully, a warmth which both 
influences the understanding and penetrates the heart. The gospel 
is no mere book, but a living creature with an agency, a power, 
which conquers all that opposes it. Here lies this Book of books 
upon the table ; I do not tire of reading it, and do so daily with 
equal pleasure. The soul, charmed with the beauty of the gospel, is 
no longer its own possession; God possesses it entirely: it is He who 
directs its thoughts and faculties ; it is His. What a proof of the 
divinity of Jesus Christ ! Yet in this absolute sovereignty He has 
but one aim : the spiritual perfection of the individual, the purifica- 
tion of his conscience, his union with what is true, the salvation of 
his soul. Men wonder at the conquests of Alexander. But here is 
a Conqueror who draws men to Himself for their highest good — who 
unites to Himself, incorporates into Himself, not a nation, but the 
whole human race. "What a miracle ! The human soul, with all its 
faculties, becomes an annexation to the existence of Christ!" — 
Quoted from BertrancPs Memoirs in Luthardt's Ftindamental Truths^ 
pp. 355, 356, but abridged from the original. (See Addenda). 
18 



274 RIGHT LIFE. 



severity, torture, and death that they might but give 
utterance to their heavenly message of " Peace on 
earth, and good will toward men/' 

Mohammedanism was the triumph of brute force, 
making men unprincipled fanatics, and women igno- 
rant slaves of man's brutal will ; Christianity was the 
triumph of light and liberty and moral suasion, lift- 
ing all humanity out of its deep degradation, renew- 
ing depraved hearts, constituting virtuous homes, 
and giving good cheer, hope, and peace in propor- 
tion as mankind have been willing to take it honestly 
to their souls. 

Mohammedanism exists as a paralyzing incubus 
and a gradual decay on all the nations and peoples 
over which it dominates ; Christianity exists as a 
principle of growing life and a dispensary of the 
sublimest benefactions ever vouchsafed to man. 'Its 
presence is to-day the divinest benediction in our 
world.* 

* " Mohammed established his kingdom killing others — Jesus 
Christ, by making his followers lay down their own lives ; Moham- 
med, by forbidding his law to be read — Jesus Christ, by commanding 
us to read. In a word, the two were so opposite that if Mohammed 
took the way, in human probability, to succeed, Jesus Christ took the 
way, humanly speaking, to be disappointed. And hence, instead of 
concluding that because Mohammed succeeded Jesus Christ might 
in like manner have succeeded, we ought to infer that, since Moham- 
med succeeded, Christianity must have inevitably perished if it had 
not been supported by a power altogether divine." — Pascal's 
Thoughts on Religion, chap. xvii. 



IMPLIED RESULTS. 2/5 

Thus, then, we have propounded to us a Saviour 
worthy of our regard, confidence, and humble obe- 
dience — a Saviour who once walked this earth as 
man while yet the true and only Son of God — a 
Saviour whose unfathomable love induced Him to 
submit to the death of the cross that He might open 
to us the doors of paradise — a Saviour once dead and 
buried, but who broke all the bands of death and the 
grave, rose again from His rocky tomb, ascended 
into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of eternal 
Majesty, glorified with the glory which He had with 
the Father before the world was, clothed with all 
authority and power as " Head over all things to the 
Church, and able to save them to the uttermost that 
come unto God by Him." It is to Him the congre- 
gations of His people have been singing for more 
than a thousand years, 

« Thou art the King of glory, O Christ ; 
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. 
When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, 
Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." 

Nor can life be right or the true goal and blessed- 
ness of our being be secured except as we join in 
that song with living faith, station ourselves under 
the standard of His Name, and learn to live to Him 
and His kingdom. For " this is the work of God, 



276 RIGHT LIFE. 



that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." *' He 
that beheveth on Him is not condemned; but he that 
beheveth not is condemned already, because he hath 
not believed in the Name of the only-begotten Son 
of God." 



LECTURE TENTH. 

€\}t Supreme ©emanti. 

Acts 17 : 30, 31 : And the times of this ignorance God winked at ; 
but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent : because He 
hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in right- 
eousness by that Man whom He hath ordained ; whereof He hath 
given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the 
dead. 

IT was in the famous city of Athens, then the 
chief centre of pagan culture, that these words 
were first spoken. Athens was not the seat of gov- 
ernment, and had lost much of its earlier political 
importance, but it was still the boast of the world 
for its elegance and glory as a city of temples, phil- 
osophers, poets, orators, artists, wits, and sages. 
Rome itself went there for teachers, and was glad 
to copy after it in all matters of fashion, social life, 
and haughty extravagance. 

By a singular providence the great apostle Paul' 
was brought to this city. Driven away from Bercea 
by a set of unprincipled ruffians, some friends con- 
ducted him hither, where he remained in waiting for 

Silas and Timothy to rejoin him. He occupied his 

277 



278 RIGHT LIFE. 



leisure and loneness in examining what could be 
seen and learned of the place. He wandered among 
the temples, statues, colonnades, markets, groves, 
and public resorts, noting what he found, conversing 
with various persons and classes here and there, and 
posting himself for an intelligent estimate of the 
people and of the things of which they were most 
proud. He was not wanting in aesthetic taste or im- 
agination, and could appreciate elegance, beauty, ge- 
nius, and whatever was pleasing and excellent. Nor 
did he fail to observe the exuberance of religious 
devotion, the masterly art, and the sensuous splen- 
dor which everywhere appeared. But, like Luther 
in Rome nearly fifteen hundred years later, there was 
nothing in all this idle pomp and classic glory to 
kindle his admiration. It was to him but little more 
than the gilding and din of a devil's nest. He was 
moved indeed, and " his spirit was stirred within 
him," but it was not by the faultless Pentelican mar- 
ble chiselled into so many exquisite forms and piled 
into such splendid structures, nor by the assemblage 
of the productions of human genius which there 
found place. He looked on things with a spiritual 
eye and weighed them in the balance of immortal 
truth, and only a profound melancholy came over 
him as he contemplated them. He saw mind, intel- 
ligence, and grand capacity, but all perverted, sen- 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 2/9 

sualized, and wasted. He saw culture of high order, 
sentiment, and devotion, but all aside from any right 
understanding of the true interests of man. He saw 
luxuriant greatness and unequalled magnificence, 
but joined with the deepest moral squalor, decay and 
death. The proud refinement and dazzling show 
were to him but the drapery of an unutterable 
shame. All this gorgeous heathenism was but a 
harlot arrayed in gems and purple, rotting with dis- 
ease — a blaspheming Herod in tissue of silver, in- 
wardly eaten of worms. And the apostle's soul was 
agitated with indignant pity as ** he saw the city 
wholly given to idolatry " and steeped in an un- 
speakable moral and spiritual degradation. 

It was not in the nature of such a man, with his 
commission, in the midst of such a scene, to hold 
his peace if opportunity came to give expression to 
his feelings. And such opportunity he found. 

From the days of Demosthenes to the time of 
Paul, the Agora, or grand exchange of Athens, was 
the chief meeting-place of the people for all sorts of 
purposes. All classes, citizens and strangers, and 
especially the newsmongers and propounders of new 
things, sauntered about this wide open space, telling, 
hearing, and discussing the topics of the day, and 
exercising their boasted powers on every fresh ques- 
tion that came up. All the affairs of mankind were 



28o RIGHT LIFE. 



there brought under free review, particularly the new 
things in philosophy, literature, and politics. The 
apostle mingled with some of these groups, heard 
what they said, and did not hesitate to put in some- 
thing of his own as the chance offered, boldly intro- 
ducing the topics of his Christian faith. He also at- 
tracted considerable attention by his remarks, one 
and another becoming engaged with him in conversa- 
tion until he found himself surrounded with people 
listening and asking questions. Some called him a 
" babbler," and turned contemptuously away, but 
others had their curiosity aroused and became eager 
to hear his whole story, since he seemed to have 
something " new." They therefore took him aside 
from the moving crowds, up the adjoining steps, to 
the top of the rocky elevation called the Hill of 
Mars, where the celebrated court of the Areopagus 
held its midnight sessions. Some of the Areopagites 
themselves were present, as well as some Epicurean 
philosophers and other people of distinction, men 
and women. 

The lone apostle thus suddenly found himself 
upon the open top of an elevation sacred to wisdom 
and justice, surrounded by an extemporized audience 
of heathen disputers, news-hunters, doubters, skep- 
tics, and savants, full of proud conceit of their su- 
perior intelligence and attainments, and himself called 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 28 1 

on, at the impulse of the moment, to address them 
on the subject of his faith and hopes. 

Christianity was about to make its first pubHc 
presentation in the midst of that sea of pagan splen- 
dor, learning, and pride. 

But the man was equal to the occasion, and proved 
his cause capable of argument and eloquence as pro- 
found and commanding as that of Demosthenes him- 
self If ever Athens heard a masterly oration, that 
audience on Mars' Hill heard it that day. One of 
the most thrilling pleasures of my life was the op- 
portunity to sit down on one of those rocky seats of 
the Areopagus, Bible in hand, tracing out the apos- 
tle's expressions, noting how sublimely they were 
framed to the objects in sight, and with what tre- 
mendous power he demolished all the gods and 
glories of Grecian thinking, pride, and adoration. 
Nor is there a grander speech, for courteous man- 
agement, for teUing point, for conclusiveness of ar- 
gument, for real eloquence, for powerful captivation 
of intellect and heart, than that which Paul gave 
forth from that brown rock, the interrupted conclu- 
sion of which is contained in the text. 

Having discoursed upon the nature of the eter- 
nal God, His relations to the universe, His Father- 
hood toward mankind, the common brotherhood of 
man, and our common childship to the great Father 



282 RIGHT LIFE. 



in heaven, he came to the practical point of the uni- 
versal duty and responsibility of all men everywhere, 
and laid down the supreme demand of Christianity 
upon all the populations of the earth. And this de- 
mand is what I now present for your earnest and 
practical consideration as the next step in our in- 
quiries concerning Right Life. 

Notice, then, the proper Christian estimate of all 
the lauded wisdom, excellence, and glory of the 
pagan world. Whatever Schoolmen and literati may 
make of the achievements of the so-called classic 
ages, Paul pronounced them " times of ignorance y 
This was the mildest word that would at all describe 
such grovelling theologies, such debasing philoso- 
phies, and such a soulless and besotted civilization. 
Of course these were all the outgrowths of ignorance, 
but it was not an innocent ignorance — a mere mis- 
fortune which they could in no wise help. It was a 
darkness which suppressed the better consciousness 
and reason, and through ill passions refused to profit 
by what of truth was within reach. Idol-worship 
and its attendant immoralities was a wicked apostasy 
from the first, and a base pampering of carnal fancy, 
lust, and pride over against the better light which 
never was wholly absent from the race. To these 
Greeks especially God had sent a teacher of better 
things in the person of Socrates, who rebuked their 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 283 

proud follies and falsities, and stood amidst the dark- 
ness and debasing conceits of his time like an Elijah 
or a John the Baptist among the degenerate tribes 
of Israel. But they would not hear his reproofs nor 
profit by his teachings. They accused him as an 
enemy, condemned him as a foe to society, and ac- 
tually put him to death. It was dreadful ignorance 
indeed, but it was a self-chosen ignorance, an igno- 
rance which fought away the light, and so an igno- 
rance " without excuse." " Wherefore God also gave 
them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their 
own hearts." Of them and of the whole heathen 
world it is written that *' as they did not choose (or 
reprobated) to keep God in their knowledge, God 
gave them over to a mind that could not choose (or 
reprobate), so that they did things not convenient," 
and wrought out a condition of society so foul that 
even one of the heathen writers of the time said, 
" We can but stand at the cavern's mouth and cast a 
single ray of light into its dark depths ; were we to 
enter, our lamp would be quenched by the density of 
foulness that would cluster around it." * 

The varied and elaborate literature of those times 
bears in it an unspeakable sadness, and all the indi- 
cations of the condition of society show a vastly 
multiplied Sodom and Gomorrah. The uncovering 

* Tacitus, Germ., 12. 



284 RIGHT LIFE. 



of the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, preserved 
in volcanic dust and cinder just as they were in hfe, 
has ^iven us an inside view of things too intensely 
horrible and disgusting for decency to recite, and 
shows a state of affairs so utterly revolting that we 
wonder it did not please God to send another flood 
to wash out for ever the dead traces of the abound- 
ing turpitude, or calcine under that fiery lava the 
memorials of a degradation which might have made 
the very marble blush. But had we been confined 
to the apostolic statements there would be many to 
doubt and denounce them as warped and exagge- 
rated partisan slanders against that world of lauded 
grandeur and enlightenment ; and hence He who 
knows the end of all things from the beginning, in 
His retributive justice upon such prostitution, used 
the belching crater to entomb for our modern inspec- 
tion some of the actualities of that haughty, glitter- 
ing, and abominable civilization which the firm hand 
of Paul rightly branded with the stigma of a dark 
and festering plague. Those ivcrc " times of igno- 
raiicel' in which not only all right thoughts of God 
were banished from the soul, but, as the inevitable 
result, everything was overrun with beastly immoral- 
ities, all deference to man's chastity or woman's 
honor was sunk in the common slough of lust, 
unrighteousness triumphed on every hand, and the 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 285 

world had consented to an unhallowed deposit of 
itself in the devil's filthy bosom.* 

* No age stands out so instantly condemned as that which recalls 
the successive names of Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, 
and Vitellius. There is no age of which the evil characteristics so 
force themselves upon the mind as that of which we learn the moral 
condition from the relics of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the satires 
of Persius and Juvenal, the epigrams of Martial, and the terrible 
records of Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dion Cassius. And yet below 
this lowest deep there is a lower deep, where the depths of Satan are 
more shamelessly laid bare to human gaze in the sordid fictions of 
Petronius and Apuleius. Along with the crimes and retributive mis- 
ery of that period were its enormous wealth ; its unbounded self-in- 
dulgence; its coarse and tasteless luxury; its greedy avai'ice; its 
sense of insecurity and terror ; its apathy, debauchery, and cruelty ; 
its hopeless fatalism ; its unspeakable sadness and weariness ; its 
strange extravagances alike of infidelity and superstition. The whole 
city of Rome in Cicero's time was owned by scarce two thousand 
proprietors out of a population of nearly a million and a half. It is 
estimated that the empire then embraced full sixty millions of slaves, 
without possessions, family, or religion, having no recognized rights, 
and toward whom none had any recognized duties. Next above the 
slaves, and forming the vast majority of the freeborn inhabitants, 
were the lower classes of citizens, mostly beggars and idlers, familiar 
with the grossest indignities of an unscrupulous dependence, despis- 
ing a life of honest industry, asking only for bread and games of the 
circus, and ready to support any government that would supply these, 
w^hile they lounged about the Forum, danced attendance at the levees 
of patrons, gossiped in the public baths, enjoyed the polluted plays 
of the theatre and the bloody sports of the arena, and at night crept 
to their miserable garrets in the vast lodging-houses of Rome, into 
which drifted eveiything wretched and vile. At a vast remove from 
these needy and greedy freemen were the people of wealth and no- 
bility, living mostly amid crowds of corrupt and obsequious slaves, 
towering in selfish luxury side by side with abject poverty, squander- 
ing fortunes on single banquets, drinking out of myrrhine and jew- 
elled vases of fabulous cost, feasting on the brains of peacocks and 
the tongues of nightingales, and rioting in gluttony, caprice, extrava- 



286 RIGHT LIFE. 



But " the times of this ignorance God winked at'' 
Here again the apostle selected the very mildest 
word to describe what he meant. As a prudent 
advocate he avoided unnecessary offence to his 
hearers. He knew to whom he was speaking, and 
what delicate precaution and conciliatoriness of man- 
ner were needed so as not to shut himself out of their 

gance, ostentation, and impurity to break and vary the monotony of 
a life of weariness, moral decay, and dying hope. And at the sum- 
mit of the general rottenness — necessary, yet detested — elevated 
above the highest, yet living in dread of the lowest — oppressing a 
population which he terrified, and terrified by the population which 
he oppressed — was the emperor, in Gibbon's phrase at once a priest, 
an atheist, and a god. 

The condition of society answered to these elements. Greece 
learned cold-blooded cruelty from Rome, and Rome learned volup- 
tuous corruption from Greece. Marriage was a thing of bargain, 
broken at pleasure, while virtuous restriction to it was disregarded 
and despised. Women married in order to be divorced, and were 
divorced in order to marry, and counted the years by their discarded 
or discarding husbands. They might take their uncles, brothers, or 
fathers for husbands, and mothers were free to become the wives of 
their sons. Strabo refers to a temple of Venus at Corinth so rich and 
well patronized that it supported above one thousand harlots conse- 
crated to public impurity. To have children was regarded a misfor- 
tune, and supple, accomplished, and abandoned Greeklings were the 
teachers to whom they were committed. Art and literature wei-e the 
most prized as they were most obscene. It seemed as if great Pan 
was dead and eveiything was full of darkness, rottenness, and moral 

death. 

" On that hard pagan world disgust 
And secret loathing fell ; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 
Made human life a hell." 

— See Farrar's Early Days of Christianity. 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 28/ 

regard. Hence these mild terms for very unpleasant 
truths. Many seem to think they cannot be faithful 
without being harsh, and hinder and damage more 
with their inconsiderate rudeness than all their sup- 
posed fidelity can repair. Had Paul broken out in 
violent declamation and thundered upon them the 
indignant wrath of Heaven, he would have de- 
stroyed his opportunity, and his audience would 
only have laughed in sneering derision, if indeed 
they could have comprehended him. Besides, Paul 
well understood how entirely safe every one may be 
from all past sins if there is now an honest purpose 
to amend and take hold of the remedy God has pro- 
vided. It would therefore have been as unevangelic 
as indiscreet for the apostle to berate, badger, and 
abuse these people whom he was most concerned to 
recover from their ruinous errors and win to the 
truth of the saving gospel of Jesus. Hence he said, 
*' the times of this ignorance God winked atT 

He does not mean that idolatry and moral delin- 
quency are at any time or in any degree tolerable to 
the pure mind of God, or that the holy Father in 
heaven ever connives at wickedness and folly, or that 
such gross aberrations from truth and righteousness 
can be matters of indifference in the sight of high 
Heaven. The meaning is that God permitted it, did 
not interfere to punish it to the full extent of its 



288 RIGHT LIFE. 



merit, allowed it to grow its own sad fruits, and 
would not make it a ground of exclusion from His 
favor, provided His voice were now heard and the 
demands for a new and better life were duly* heeded. 

It is a great and blessed truth of the gospel proc- 
lamation that, however erring or wicked any one 
may have been, there is no sin or guilt so bad but it 
is entirely overlooked and forgiven in case the heart 
now opens to the divine calls and is honestly set and 
disposed to lay hold of the proffered amnesty. If 
sinners are willing and anxious to become better 
men, and will henceforth submit themselves to the 
guidance of grace, God quite overlooks or closes 
His eye to their former iniquities, and will no more 
hold to accountability for them. All that is required, 
even for the wickedest and most depraved idolaters, 
is simply to turn from their errors and ill wa}^s to 
serve the living and true God, and all their past 
offences will be remembered no more against them. 

But with the proclamation of the truth comes a 
rigid responsibility. When men are once shown 
their wrong, there is no more cloak or excuse for 
their continuance in it. With new light, privilege, 
and opportunity there come a fresh and more im- 
perious obligation to act up to the same, and a far 
severer condemnation in case the truth is resisted 
and despised. And so the apostle announced to 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 289 

these erring pagans. Their heathen abominations 
would be no bar to their acceptance with God and 
their eternal salvation, provided that, as the better 
way was now laid open to them, they would respond 
to the demands of the truth. 

What, then, were these demands ? Or what does 
Christianity require of those to whom it is preached? 
Most graphically, and with a clearness which admits 
of no mistake, the apostle announced from the very 
seat of wisdom and justice that " God now conimand- 
eth all men everyivhere to repent^ 

The essence of all Christian duty and the begin- 
ning of all Right Life is repentance. When John 
the Baptist came with his startling message to the 
degenerate Jews, he made the wilderness ring and 
all the land reverberate with this one great inculca- 
tion : " Repent ye, for the kingdom of the heavens is 
at hand." When Jesus entered upon his ministry of 
salvation the Record is that " He began to preach, 
and to say, Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is 
at hand." Again and again He said that His mis- 
sion to this world was " to call sinners to repent- 
ance." When He had selected the twelve disciples, 
and began to send them forth by two and two and 
gave them power over unclean spirits, " they went 
out and preached that men should repent." The 
first Christian sermon after- the outpouring of the 

19 



290 RIGHT LIFE. 



Holy Ghost, when Peter opened the doors of tlie 
Christian Church for the conscience-stricken Jews, 
wound up with the great practical command, " Re- 
pent, and be baptized every one of you in the Name 
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." And the 
great apostle of the Gentiles in propounding the 
demands of Christianity to the Greeks laid it down 
as the voice and requirement of God that every one 
must repent. 

There is, then, no right answer to the truth of 
God, no coming into the kingdom of heaven, no 
putting of the soul into proper position in the uni- 
verse, no conformity to eternal justice, no Right 
Life, where there is no repentance. 

You will observe that repentance is now God's 
positive command. It is not a thing of mere kind 
advice or earnest counsel. It is not only a merciful 
suggestion or friendly entreaty. It is the demand 
of sovereign authority. It bears with it all the sol- 
emn sanctions of the Decalogue itself Whether we 
see into all the reasonableness of it or not — whether 
it suits us or not — whether it meets our convenience 
or involves the sacrifice of what we most value and 
cherish — does not matter. Repentance is the irre- 
versible law of our dispensation — the one great and 
invincible obligation of man to the eternal throne. 

And it is of universal application. " God command- 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 29 1 

eth all men to repent" — Jew and Gentile, learned and 
ignorant, kings and subjects, high and low, rich and 
poor, the greatest philosopher and the humblest 
peasant. There is no discrimination in favor of 
any class or sex or age. What is required of one 
is equally required of another. Locality or place 
makes no difference. It is the same in Athens, 
where everything is heathen, and in Jerusalem, where 
idols are an abomination. Wherever natural men are 
found — on thrones, in cabinets, in legislative halls, 
in seats of judgment, and in lordly mansions, as 
well as in the commonest homes — in the store, in 
the counting-room, in the office, in the bank, in the 
manufactory, in the schoolhouse, in the hotel, in the 
market or the workshop, on the highway or the rail- 
car, on the farm or in the mine, on the street-corner 
or in the club-house, on sea or on land, at home or 
abroad, in the army, in the navy, in the artist's 
studio, in the place of concourse, in retirement, in 
the gay assembly, in the house of amusement, in 
the sick-room — " all men everywhere " are required to 
repent. There is no territory of earth, no country, 
no zone of land, no spot of sea, no locality of space, 
where man is, that this grand requirement does not 
apply and bind. 

But what is repentance? That depends in part 
upon the condition of each individual. Though 



292 RIGHT LIFE. 



essentially the same in all, there are some practical 
diversities arising from the particular situation and 
character of the penitent. It is not one thing in one 
and another thing in another, but it does involve dif- 
ferent things in different cases. The word means an 
after-viezv, a sober second thought, by which one 
changes his mind and estimate of things, and re- 
directs his purpose with regret for the past and 
better aims for the future. A review of things 
which induces a change of mind and aim is its 
deepest sense. In its religious application repent- 
ance is such a thinking back upon our beliefs, feel- 
ings, and manner of life, compared with the require- 
ments of truth and righteousness, as makes us con- 
scious of our deflections and defects, and leads us to 
set ourselves to the honest work of adjusting every- 
thing to the standard from which we have wandered. 
To the heathen populations, with their false wor- 
ships and corrupting idolatries, repentance meant 
the consideration of their flagrant wrongs and the 
unreserved turning from their idols to serve the liv- 
ing and true God, to accept and honor Him as their 
God and Father, and to fix their only hope in His 
gracious promises in Christ Jesus. They were 
to think of their wickedness and degradation in 
parcelling out the names and attributes of the great 
Creator among a multiplicity of fancied gods, deify- 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 293 

ing their own lusts and ill passions, and claiming 
the sanctions of Heaven for their disgusting im- 
moralities, and by all means get themselves out 
from under such a depraving domination. No 
pagan temple was any more to be entered for wor- 
ship, no offerings any more made to any god but 
God, nor anything devoted to idols any more to be 
touched or tasted. All their heathenish ways and 
habits were to be given up, their corrupt lives and 
debasing ideas to be completely abandoned. A 
new rule and standard for the regulation of their 
thinking and behavior were to be accepted and con- 
sistently adhered to. They were to station them- 
selves in the confession of the one eternal God, and 
His Son Jesus Christ as their only Mediator, Lord, 
and Hope, and to conform themselves in everything 
in honest faithfulness to their new confession. This, 
and nothing less than this, did Paul mean when he 
preached repentance to the people of Athens as 
God's immutable command to every one to whom 
the gospel message comes. 

To the Jews this command had a somewhat differ- 
ent bearing. They acknowledged the one eternal 
God, and they were not worshippers of heathen 
idols. But they idolized their own national calling, 
laws, and ceremonies, and thought themselves safe 
in the divine favor simply because they were Jews 



294 RIGHT LIFE. 



and rendered a perfunctory obedience to the refine- 
ments of their traditionary observances, out of which 
they had quite dropped the spirit of justice, mercy, 
and inward righteousness. They had even gone so 
far as to void the whole spiritual substance of the 
Law by their traditions and self-righteousness, and 
to reject and crucify their own divine Messiah as a 
blasphemer and malefactor. Repentance was there- 
fore just as necessary for them as for the Gentiles, 
for, with all their proud holiness, they were just as 
fatally out of the way, and equally great sinners 
even in spite of their better opportunities. They 
needed to reconsider their whole attitude and ways, 
and radically to change their v/hole mind, or they 
never could be in right accord with Heaven. They 
were not required to change their God, but they 
were required to change their partial views of God, 
their false ideas of righteousness, their murderous 
antagonism toward Jesus and His gospel, and their 
deification of their own national calling and system 
over against the revelation and purposes of God to 
make all nations eligible to His salvation through 
His Son Jesus Christ. They were to come back to 
the true spirit of the Law and the Prophets, which 
looked, above all, to the coming and work of that 
Saviour whom His contemporaries wickedly took 
and hanged upon a tree. They were to change their 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 295 

minds in all these particulars, to embrace with all 
their soul Him whom they had crucified, and to find 
in Him that Messiah in whom the world's salvation 
stands. This, and nothing less than this, did Peter 
mean when, in the power of the Holy Ghost, he 
stood and said to them, " Repent, and be baptized 
every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ." 

And so this required change differs according to 
the nature of the situation and the kind of aberration 
from truth and righteousness to be remedied. Those 
who have no God must give up their atheism, and 
accept, worship, and obey Him who is over all, 
blessed for evermore. Idolaters must give up their 
idols and change to the service of the one only liv- 
ing God. Those who acknowledge God, but reject 
His Son Jesus Christ, must reconsider their views, 
and learn to adore and trust in Him whose is the 
only name given among men by which any one can 
be saved. Those who are not Christians must set 
themselves to become such. And even Christians 
themselves, if they have at all sunk from their first 
love and devotion, must remember whence they have 
fallen, and begin the whole work afresh, that they 
may not fail of the grace of God. In a word, the 
wicked must forsake his way and the unrighteous 
man his thoughts, and return unto the Lord, in 
order to obtain mercy, pardon, and eternal life. 



296 RIGHT LIFE. 



This is repentance. And this is what Christianity 
demands as God's supreme requirement of every 
one who would be right in this world or share 
the eternal blessedness of the next. It is the key- 
note and substance of all gospel morality, which 
is the noblest and truest that has ever been pro- 
pounded to the acceptance of man. Tested by the 
moral consciousness of universal humanity — tested 
by its influence on individual hearts and lives — 
tested by the involuntary testimony which is fur- 
nished by the judgments of its adversaries upon its 
disciples — tested by the entire scope of its history 
and results both in communities and individual lives, 
— what Christianity thus requires not only trans- 
cends all the moral systems in the world, but so far 
transcends them as to be virtually unique, leaving 
nothing for even imagination to add. 

And to this God now holds every one. People 
must give up sin, or perish. They must honor God, 
or sink beneath His consuming wrath. They must 
believe and seek the salvation that is in Christ, or 
die. They must learn to know God and obey the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, or be "punished 
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the 
Lord and from the glory of His power." For "'He 
hath appointed a day in the ivhicJi He zcill jndoe the 
zvorld in rigliteoiisness by that Man luJioni He hath 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 297 

ordained, zu here of He hath given assurance unto all 
ine7i, in that He hath raised Him from the dead J' 

Wickedness and defiance of God and His truth 
cannot run riot for ever. Proud unbelief and wil- 
ful ungodliness will not be suffered without limit. 
The trampled laws of righteousness must erewhile 
assert their dignity and avenge the brazen insults 
rendered to them. The truth despised and rejected 
is to rise up some day for the vindication of its maj- 
esty. God will not allow His great Name to be 
contemned, His authority to be despised, His Word 
to be dishonored, and His only Son to be made the 
butt of the jeers and taunts and contemptuous mock- 
eries of men, without bringing transgressors to ac- 
count. He has been wonderfully forbearing. The 
times of ignorance He has largely " winked at." He 
has much restrained His judgment-thunders because 
He is not willing that any should perish, but that all 
should come to repentance. Even to the worst that 
live He is still waiting to be gracious. But there is 
a point over which forbearance cannot go, and where 
mercy itself takes the form of unsparing justice. So 
the Word of God by all His holy prophets and 
apostles is ; and natural conscience, through all the 
wrecks and relics of her once sovereign empire, still 
re-echoes the solemn truth that for every soul and 
every sin there is a coming judgment. 



298 RIGHT LIFE. 



Men in their worldly greed and self-consequential 
pride and pretence of better knowledge may only 
revile the thought, and many in their unbelief may 
persuade themselves that it is not true ; but that will 
not stay the chariot-wheels of Omnipotence nor set 
aside the decrees of eternal justice. Jezebel held 
out in murderous defiance that there was no God 
but Baal, and it long seemed as if she might be 
right ; but the time came when Jehovah's word went 
into effect, and the horses trampled her in the street 
and the dogs of Jezreel gnawed and crunched her 
bones. The Jews scorned the call of Christ and His 
apostles, and a curse of unexampled horror fell upon 
their city and their state which eighteen hundred 
years of exile and suffering have not sufficed to ex- 
haust. Again and again giants of unbelief and 
crime have risen up in their pride to cast defiance 
into the face of God, to blaspheme His throne, and 
to spit upon His Christ ; but the time came when 
they wrestled in fruitless agony with the enormity 
of their sins or fell blasted and riven by Jehovah's 
judgments, like some towering oaks shattered to 
their roots by the fierce bolts of an angiy Heaven. 
And so it must ever be. Even the meek and gentle 
Saviour hath said, " Except ye repent, yc shall all like- 
wise perish J' 

Dear friends, these are no trifles. They are the 



THE SUPREME DEMAND. 299 

inevitable implications of what we have solidly rea- 
soned out on the basis of unalterable fact. They 
stand as the very substance of that instruction which 
comes to us in the sure revelation of God, reiterated 
by conscience and confirmed by all the analogy of 
history. And as sure as God Himself and all the 
eternal laws of right, consuming wrath is the im- 
pending portion of the finally impenitent. 

And yet it is not in the spirit of an inexorable 
Judge, but of a loving Father, that God has given 
us these revelations of His will and purposes. It is 
not that He would break any one down in abject 
submission through mere fear and dread that He 
directs us so pointedly to the righteous judgment to 
come, but that we may learn to know the destructive 
evilness of sin and His intensity of desire to save us 
out of it. It is not so much to move us by threats 
as to advise us in paternal kindness of the deplor- 
able ills that must come of departure from eternal 
truth and right, that we may duly value the grace 
meant for our rescue, and avail ourselves while we 
may of the provided redemption. It is not at all 
that God is a hard and exacting Master, but that He 
is such an overflowing Fountain of love and good- 
ness as to give His only-begotten Son to suffer and 
die in our behalf, and that the final failure of any 
soul is an infinite pity to the universe and an infinite 



300 RIGHT LIFE. 



unsatlsfactoriness to Himself. For with the enun- 
ciation of the certain perdition of those who fail to 
come to repentance there ever goes this further 
word : " Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord 
God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; 
but that the wicked turn from his way and live : 
turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will 
ye die ?" 



LECTURE ELEVENTH. 

Ci}rtst i])t (©nig Hope. 

John 6 : 68 : Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words 
of eternal life. 

IN one of the magnificent dreams of Jean Paul 
(Richter) that eccentric genius represents his 
spirit as carried by thought into the heavenly spaces, 
and from system to system through the starry skies, 
under the leadership of an angel of light. Wearied 
at length, and bowed down with the overwhelming 
sense of his littleness amid the desolate intervals 
between world and world, he prayed that he might 
go no farther, saying, " I am lonely in these wastes. 
The full world is great, but Vacancy is greater." To 
this the reply came : " In the sight of God there is no 
Vacancy. Even now, O child of man, let thy quick- 
ened eye behold and thy dreaming heart embrace 
the depths of Being around thee." And his eye was 
opened, and a sea of light filled all the spaces which 
seemed desolate before, and his heart felt the pres- 
ence of an unspeakable power, swelling in varied 
forms of existence around him. Suns and planets 

301 



302 RIGHT LIFE. 



were seen floating as mere specks in the vast ocean 
of life which stood revealed. All consciousness of 
weariness and pain was gone. Immeasurable joy 
and thanksgiving filled his soul. But in the en- 
rapturing splendor of the vision his guide had van- 
ished. He was alone in the midst of the glories of 
teeming life, and yearned for some close companion- 
ship. Just then there came sailing toward him out 
of the empyrean depths, through the galaxies of 
stars, a dark globe, moving along the sea of light, 
and a human form, as of a child, stood upon it in 
unchanging beauty. He gazed in wonder as it drew 
near. " At last," he says, " I recognized our earth 
before me, and on it the Child Jesus, and He looked 
upon me with a look so bright and gentle and lov- 
ing that I awoke for love and joy." 

This may be taken as a fit parable of the experi- 
ence of those souls who put themselves under the 
guidance and instruction of the Angel of the Church 
and set themselves by the grace of God to fulfil the 
supreme requirement which we had under consider- 
ation in our last. There is in this a lifting up and 
soaring away of thought beyond worlds and systems 
toward the unsearchable majesty of the eternal God, 
till the whole nature bows down, crushed and over- 
whelmed with a sense of its unworthy littleness, and 
ready to despair before such vast infinitudes. But 



CHRIST THE ONL V HOPE. 303 

when the eyes become fully opened and quickened 
by the truth, what first was so dreadful becomes un- 
speakably glorious. The heavens take on new 
aspects of light and life. Eternal power appears as 
one vast ocean of creative and living Love, charm- 
ing away the crushing weight of anguish and de- 
spondency, and overflowing the full measure of the 
soul with exultant thanksgiving and blessed peace, 
in which all other agencies sink from sight, and the 
Child Jesus, guiding the dark world along the great 
sea of heavenly light, fills up the admiring view, 
drawing ever nearer and nearer in His everlasting 
beauty, and smiling on the soul with a look of 
brotherly sympathy and tenderest companionship 
which awakens to the life of joy and love. 

Nor is this a mere ideal picture. Peter had heard 
the Christ-call, and turned from his fishing to the 
Christ-following, and found in himself an experience 
so blessed that, when appealed to whether he too 
would go away and leave off his Christ-hope, he 
looked up into the loving face of his Lord with 
agonizing despair at such a thought, saying, " Lord, 
to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of 
eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

The word of Jesus from the beginning was that 
all who came to Him should find rest unto their 



;04 RIGHT LIFE. 



souls; that whosoever believed in Him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life ; that whoever fol- 
lowed Him should not walk in darkness, but have 
the light of life ; that whoever should continue in 
His Word should know the truth, and the truth 
should make them free ; that if a man should love 
Him and keep His words, the Father would love 
him, and They would come to him and make their 
abode with him ; and that the Spirit of truth would 
be a Comforter, Guide, Helper, and joy to all 
believers. 

And as He spake, so it came to pass with all those 
who truly embraced Him as their Lord and Saviour. 
It was to them a thing of blessed experience that " to 
as many as received Him, to them gave He power to 
become the sons of God, even to as many as believed 
on His Name, and upon them the Holy Spirit was be- 
stowed." By the wonder-working energy of His grace 
they became " new creatures," very children of God, 
lifted quite out of their former selves and renewed in 
all the springs of their being. They found themselves 
born over again, to see with new eyes, to realize with 
new senses, to live to another realm altogether. 
Speakers and hearers, teachers and disciples, conv^ert- 
ers and converted, alike not only confessed and pro- 
fessed, but abundantly showed in ver}' fact, that a 
spiritual revolution was wrought in them, delivering 



CHRIST THE ONL V HOPE. 305 

them from the tyranny of their old bondage to sin 
and death, and rendering them happy and triumphant 
amid adversities, persecutions, and all the forms of 
torture the malignity of hell could devise. Their 
views, their feelings, their aims, their grounds of 
action, their inspirations, and everything entering 
into their activities and characteristics, were changed, 
exalted, and thoroughly renewed. Grace transformed 
them into rejoicing saints burning with an unquench- 
able zeal to bring all their fellow-men into the same 
blessed fellowship with God and heaven. It was not 
empty conceit or pretence; it was not fanatical 
enthusiasm ; it was not presumptuous hallucination ; 
it was literal fact and sober reality — the same at 
Jerusalem, at Antloch, at Ephesus, at Corinth, at 
Rome, and wherever since the gospel has extended 
and men have opened their eyes to see and their 
hearts to take in the light of the knowledge of 
the glory of God as it shines in the face of Jesus 
Christ. 

It is the proposal and claim of Christianity to 
give a Redeemer to sinners, a Saviour to the suffer- 
ing, and a Restorer to the dead ; to inspire life with 
a sense of eternal realities ; to impart citizenship in 
a supernal realm ; to open the gates of hope to guilt 
and peril ; and to breathe into this perturbed and 

sorrowful mortal life the spirit of love, joy, peace, 
20 



306 RIGHT LIFE. 



long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
moderation, and calm waiting for translation into the 
beatitudes and fellowships of a blessed immortality. 
It claims to have a living Christ, the same yesterday, 
to-day, and for ever, who holds the sovereign mas- 
tery of the world, and who comes as the outbeaming 
of the Father's glory, and with " words of eternal 
life " to speak to all troubled souls, giving them 
beauty for ashes and the oil of praise for the spirit 
of heaviness, and making them coheirs with Him- 
self to an imperishable inheritance of life and glory. 
And the great question now before all hearers of the 
gospel is, Will they accept these unspeakable riches 
of grace or not ? and if they will not have Jesus for 
their Lord and Saviour, to whom or what will they 
betake themselves to fill His place ? 

It is clearly the desire of all to be happy if they 
can, however eccentric and erroneous may be their 
thoughts as to where they are to find the object of 
their desire. There be many thinking people to 
whom life is no jest, who would like to make the 
most of their existence and not miss the proper goal 
of their being. There be many earnest souls among 
the varied ranks of mankind who feel the pressure 
of human needs, and would fain give themselves to 
what would meet and satisfy them if they were con- 
fident of success. Some, indeed, are so asleep, be- 



CHRIST THE ONL V HOPE. 307 

side themselves, or spiritually dead, or so submerged 
in the slough and slime of carnal greed. Mammon- 
worship, and sensual pleasure-seeking, as to be but 
little concerned about any higher questions or any 
deeper needs ; but most people, at least at times, 
have very serious thoughts about the nature and 
issues of this mysterious voyage of human life — 
how to steer in safety, and what perchance shall be 
their lot upon those farther shores. And if any of 
you, dear friends, are of this class, and yet are not 
content to accept the Lord Jesus as the Captain of 
salvation, I press the question : *' To whom will you 
go f " Where look to find the good for which you 
sigh ? On what think you to rest your souls for se- 
curity and peace ? 

Think it not impertinence that I make this inquiry. 
It is in no spirit of haughty banter that I would cat- 
echise your purposes or contemplations. It is in 
unfeigned kindness and in tenderest love for your 
holiest interests that I ask and would have you con- 
sider on what you calculate to adventure your con- 
fidence if not on the divine and ever-blessed Jesus. 
I am persuaded that a mistake at this point is one 
that never can be remedied, and must prove fatal to 
all the precious treasures of your existence. And 
as an ambassador of Him who gave Himself to an 
accursed death, and lives enthroned as Lord of 



308 RIGHT LIFE. 



heaven and earth in order to be to you a competent 
Redeemer, I ask you, in His Name and in His loving 
spirit, to consider, if you mean to turn away from 
Him, to whom you will go or on what depend for 
the proper blessedness of your being. 

After what we have ascertained concerning the 
theologies and philosophies of heathenism, their 
lack of power for good upon the civilizations under 
them, and the depths of degradation to which society 
was reduced in spite of them and largely by them, 
and the sad despair of the soul where it had nothing 
better on which to rest, we can hardly conceive how 
a right-thinking man can give place to the idea of 
going back again to them for spiritual security and 
hope. The grafting upon them of the more humane 
spirit which the modern world has deriv^ed from 
Christianity is powerless to redeem them or to make 
any of them fit resting-places for human thought 
and Right Life. They are old, and evidence in 
some instances very vigorous efforts of the human 
mind, but their long-abandoned ruins stand by the 
waysides of history like Europe's owl-inhabited re- 
mains of the Middle Ages. Some of the less tutored 
of mankind, in their ignorance and squalor, still 
huddle around them for spiritual shelter, but the 
common sense of the best portions of the race for 
the last twelve hundred years has given them up 



CHRIST THE ONL Y HOPE. 309 

as absurd and worthless. They were the outgrowths 
of mighty struggles of the human mind in trying to 
find its way back after having forsaken God, of 
whom it could not cease dreaming ; but the world 
everywhere went down in decay and death under 
their unwholesome shades. They are interesting 
fossils — remains of gigantic powers, whose life was 
smothered by the pestilent fumes of their own en- 
gendering, and whose resurrection in any shape can 
only steep the soul in the horrid putrefaction of 
which they died. What hope, then, can there be in 
going back to them ? 

Shall we go, then, to those still living heathenisms 
which command so many peoples of the Orient ? 
What shall we find there to give hope and promise 
to man or to help him to the fulfilment of the pur- 
pose of his being? The faiths of Confucius, Lao- 
tsze, and Buddha have their millioned adherents in 
the far East, and there intermingle and complement 
each other ; but neither singly nor combined do they 
serve to make up what man needs, and must have 
for his highest happiness. 

The prudential wisdom of Confucius is without 
the enthusiasm of humanity. It has no large ideals, 
no exalted hopes, no universal and divine affinities, 
with which to transform and inspire man. There is 
in Confucianism no bringing of God to man in order 



■310 RIGHT LIFE. 



to lift man to God. The worship of ancestors means 
the despotism of the dead and the bondage of the 
living — the sacrifice of a progressive and happy 
future to a narrow and inflexible past. Look at 
this religion as realized in its adherents, so quick- 
witted, yet so stationary, so docile in things of sense 
and craft, so jealous and slow to learn in things of 
the spirit. Imagine what it would be were the whole 
world an immense Chinese empire, enslaved and im- 
poverished by a dead and exhausted antiquity. 
Who that has tasted the freedom, life, and hopes 
of our civilization would like to make the exchange 
and die as a heathen Chinee ? * 

Nearer to us lies India. There Brahmanism rules 
— an active and in some sense an aggressive religion, 
absorbing new tribes, new beliefs, and ever vora- 
ciously crying for more, but carrying in its very life 
the most awful tyranny of custom and of caste. 
Where it goes its iron distinctions go, making 
brotherhood, freedom, and the happy intercourse 

* A Taoist dignitary, more than eighty years of age, called on the 
missionary James Legge at Hong-Kong, and said that his study of 
the tzLo of L§,o-tsze for fifty years had left him without hope, and that 
he had almost resigned himself to despair of finding the truth for 
which his heart yearned. Reading some Christian tracts, he said, 
" It was as if scales had dropped from my eyes." He accepted Christ, 
and the joy of his departure was like that which the aged Simeon 
experienced when he took the infant Saviour in his arms — he had 
found God's salvation. — Legge's Religions of China, p. 297. 



CHRIST THE ONL V HOPE. 3 1 1 



of man with man impossible. Morality is unknown 
to it. It deifies the basest as the best with equal 
facility. It reduces personal existence to a calamity 
hard to be borne and still harder to be evaded. Its 
futurity is a ceaseless revolving in the wheel of being 
not so much to be feared as to be abhorred. Brah- 
manism universalized could only mean man depraved 
and sent to wander wearily through time in search 
of eternal oblivion for his peace. 

Buddhism is a revolt against Brahmanism, and far 
more widespread. It is a gentler system, and has a 
human personality which exerts a softening influence 
on its spirit. It also teaches some worthy ethical 
precepts. But it has no God ; and a religion without 
God is a religion without hope, and unable to cope 
with the ills of time. Buddhism is the apotheosis 
of sorrow and the victory of suffering. According 
to it, to escape misery man must escape from being. 
All idea of conquering evil here in order to be holy 
and happy hereafter is altogether foreign to it. Its 
vital principle is selfish, and its virtue is only a poor 
and impotent policy at best. It is a religion of spir- 
itual death, and annihilation is its only heaven. 

Still nearer to us is the religion of Mohammed, 
which gives us the reverse of Buddhism. It accepts 
an almighty and eternal God and Judge, and magni- 
fies Him and humbles man. But it has no Christ. 



3 I 2 RIGHT LIFE. 



Mohammed is no substitute for Jesus. Islam's God 
is inflexible and severe — a Fate, a fierce Arab chief 
invested with stern almightiness, whose service is 
abject submission, not rational obedience. The 
Mohammedan Deity also spares and favors the sins 
the Arab most loves. Mohammedanism, like all 
these Oriental systems, degrades and enslaves wom- 
an, and thus corrupts humanity at its fountain. A 
religion without a pure home cannot regenerate the 
race. Motherhood must be sacred if manhood is to 
be virtuous and honorable. Degrade the wife, and 
hfe's sanctities perish. Mohammedanism has no 
sanctity, but a cruel fanaticism. It has changed and 
lifted some savage tribes, but it has proved itself a 
depraving spoiler of civilized nations. At the root 
of its fairest culture a voracious worm has ever lived 
to make its blossoms wither and bring on decay and 
death. Society is ignorant, depraved, sick, and 
hopeless wherever Islam reigns. If man has no 
prospects except in it, his destiny is retrogression, 
tyranny, and despair. It is worse even than modern 
Judaism, which wanders about the world as a moan- 
ing ghost of a grand prophetic religion, whose life 
went out as the prophecies were fulfilled. Judaism 
is a fading reminiscence of a great and sacred his- 
tory, and Islamism is a theft from it, commingled 
with the depravities and wild fancies of a fanatical 



CHRIST THE ONL V HOPE. 3 I 3 



and semi-civilized people. Gloomy dreams, power- 
less half-truths, and immoral illusions cover all that 
is to be found in all these wasting and dying sys- 
tems, which still hover over the darker portions of 
our world.* 

And what better is the prospect in betaking one's 
self to the various systems of modern unbelief and 
skepticism, which are mostly but new versions of 
dead philosophies of the past ? You may tell a man 
there is no God, or that the universe is God, or that 
himself is God, or that it cannot be known whether 
there be a God or not; but what recourse does that 
furnish him against his conscious weaknesses and 
sins ? What consolation can it give him in his 
manifold distresses and the Godward sighing of his 
soul ? Besides, you thus so stifle his native instincts, 
and stultify his better reason, and launch him upon 
such a sea of mystery and doubt that he cannot be 
sure of anything, while something within still whis- 
pers the possibility of an infinite and almighty God 
who made and will judge him, and that dread possi- 
bility alone is an incurable canker to his peace. 

You may tell him that death is a passage into 
everlasting nothingness, and sing to him of the per- 
fect cessation of his troubled and anxious self in the 
gulf of oblivion or some Buddhistic Nirvana; but 

* See Faiibairn's City of God, pp. 95-98. 



314 RIGHT LIFE. 



that will not blunt the poignancy of earthly sorrow, 
nor satisfy his undying thirst for life, nor give him 
hope in the hour of dissolution, nor silence the dark 
forebodings of his spirit, which will not down, how- 
ever he may command them. 

You may persuade him to burn his Bible as a 
book of musty myths, whose great doctrines of God 
and futurity are but the bugbears of traditional su- 
perstition, and his carnal heart may be delighted for 
a time with your assurances that he now is free ; but 
when the test of trial comes, like Hume's mother he 
will conjure you for something you have not where- 
with to fill the vacancy you have created in his soul. 
Having taken from him what might have given him 
some comfort, and put only chilling darkness in its 
place, his inmost feeling is that you have only 
mocked his miseries. 

You may teach him to believe that he is nothing 
but an accidental product of blind and inexorable 
eternal forces, born of chance, living by a brief for- 
tuitous concourse of atoms soon to vanish again into 
his parent elements ; but you so confound his reason, 
outrage his instincts, suppress his native aspirations, 
and fetter him with oppressive mysteries that, with 
all his desire to rest in your philosophy, he finds his 
heart rebelling against it. If chance put him here, 
why may not chance land him also in some other 



CHRIST THE ONL V HOPE. 3 I 5 



world of fearful retribution? His whole nature 
shudders amid such doubtful contemplations, and 
death becomes to him a dreadful step into the dark. 
The final hours of Voltaire, Talleyrand, Hume, 
Paine, and Sir Francis Newport may serve to show 
how impossible it is for atheistic philosophy to sus- 
tain and comfort the soul when it comes face to face 
with eternity. 

Take the Darwinian theory of the world, which is 
now proving so acceptable to a certain class of minds. 
According to it. Nature is wonderful, but as merci- 
less as marvellous. According to it, the world 
is a scene of interminable strife, the uncertain para- 
dise of the strong, the certain hell of the weak 
and feeble. The history of the past Is simply the 
success of strength dominating over what had not 
the power to cope with it. The fittest, that is to 
say, the strongest, only have survived or can sur- 
vive, while the ever-during struggle for life is the 
only Providence — an unknown war-god, always on 
the side of the big battalions, and pitiless to the 
homes of gentleness and love, over which he ever 
drives his ruthless chariot on his way to victory. 
Darwinism makes a state of conflict the basis and 
beginning of order, and so its order can be nothing 
but a state of conquest, where the victorious strong 
of to-day may be the conquered weak of to-morrow, 



3l6 RIGHT LIFE. 



with no end to the enormous struggle, and no futur- 
ity except in offspring, perhaps to triumph, perhaps 
to perish everlastingly. For the present, Nature has 
thrown up man, with all these restless cravings for 
God and peace and eternal recompense for his toils 
and sorrows, just to be supplanted by some new and 
unknown product of inexorable law as unfeeling as 
it is self-originated and self-enforced, or to dissolve 
back into first elements, to come again into the mill 
of conflict and the everlasting toils of trying to 
become, without prospect of a crown even when 
most triumphant. Alas ! alas ! What is there in all 
this to give a man hope and satisfaction of his being 
or to make him feel for a moment that it is worth 
being a man ? In such an order of things it were 
better a thousand-fold to be an unfeeling clod. We 
would then at least be saved the pain of knowing 
that Nature is such a monstrous and cruel mother. 
Some, indeed, would find comfort and satisfaction 
in their good deeds. These are quite loud in aver- 
ring that righteousness is their God and goodness 
their religion. But unbelievers of this class do not 
know what they are saying. Without a personal 
God to give us the law and rule of life there can be 
no righteousness or goodness. It has been justly 
said, ** It is the misfortune of the atheistic theory 
that it makes the moral world an anarchy, and refers 



CHRIST THE ONL V HOPE. 3 I / 

all ethical questions to that confused tribunal where 
Chaos sits as umpire, and by decision more embroils 
the fray." These humanities in which modern athe- 
ism would fain glorify itself are all stolen from 
Christianity. They were never grown on atheistic 
ground ; and, separated from their Christian founda- 
tions, they have no standard of appeal to save them 
from utter wreck amid the ever-shifting changes of 
individual notions and idiosyncrasies. Without a 
sovereign Ruler there can be no law; and where 
there is no law one thing is as right as another, and 
each individual becomes supreme judge in his own 
case. The same thing is thus both bad and good, 
just as the man himself may think. Nor will it re- 
lieve the matter to say that " everything is right that 
tends to the happiness of mankind, and everything 
is wrong that increases the sum of human misery ;" 
for no man can compute the results of his actions, 
while some think the worst things the best, and 
others think the best things the worst. Where, 
then, is the standard to determine whether any 
given act is good or evil, holy or wicked? How 
often have people defended the greatest crimes on 
the plea of necessity for the public good ! How 
many human lives have been destroyed because 
somebody was persuaded that it would be promotive 
of the happiness of mankind ! The most malignant 



3l8 RIGHT LIFE. 



assassins have justified all sorts of murder on the 
ground that it was for the public benefit and that 
only good would come of it. Making the end 
justify the means, and leaving every one to judge 
for himself with reference to both end and means, 
there can be no such thing as a standard of right 
and good, and every one can see that the whole 
world would be turned into a Bedlam, and that 
security and peace would be impossible.* 

Others admit the existence of some sort of deity, 
but deny that he has given any revelations or rule 
of life except what exists in Nature. Their law is 
impulse and whatever each may feel to be a dictate 
of Nature. But this system so far un-Gods God as 
to sever all bonds of accountability, leaving neither 
basis nor standard for any fixed morality. It destroys 
the supports of right conscience, and delivers over 

* " Without the intervention of a superior will it is impossible 
there should be any moral laws, except in the lax metaphorical sense 
in which we speak of the laws of matter and motion. Men being 
essentially equal, morality is, on these principles, only a stipulation 
or silent compact into which eveiy individual is supposed to enter as 
far as suits his convenience, and for the breach of which he is ac- 
countable to nothing but his own mind. His own mind is his 
law, his tribunal, and his judge." — Robert Hall's Modem Infidelity y 
p. 27. 

So true is this that Renan and Lowry maintain that all we call good 
or virtue is a mere delusion and vanity, and that the end of existence 
is a great blank. 

" An atheistic and materialistic democracy seems to me a ver)' hell 
upon earth." — Pressensi. 



CHRIST THE ONLY HOPE. 319 

the soul to be tossed and drifted amid veering pas- 
sions and uncertain judgments, ever conscious of its 
weakness, ever doubtful of its position, and ever 
tormented with misgivings touching its futurity. 

Nor is the matter the least improved by resorting 
to the dark rooms of the necromancers for commu- 
nications with the spirits of the dead. There you 
may hear what professes to come from loving friends 
and worthy sages, and receive pratings about beauti- 
ful spheres of everlasting progress, light, and love, 
without danger of failure or fear of hell. Believing, 
you may be charmed for a time into trances of wild 
satisfaction and hope; but the instruction is, not to 
rest too much on what your Bible says, not to 
believe at all in the doctrines of the Cross, not to 
concern yourself about Providence and a personal 
God, not to trouble with the conventional laws of 
human society, and, above all, not to fail in implicit 
confidence in your demon guides, however much 
their instructions may deflect from the common 
ideas of decency and good morals. And when 
you have well surrendered your proper selfhood to 
the " black spirits and white," you awake in a new 
universe indeed, but with songs and liturgies to 
devils in your mouth. By its own confessions, as 
well as by all its fruits, it is proven to be of hell and 
in its service. Sensual, credulous, shallow, mel- 



320 RIGHT LIFE. 



ancholic people may be captivated with it and stake 
their dearest hopes upon it, but only by embracing 
all sorts of moral paradoxes, trampling on some of 
God's most specific laws, sanctioning some of the 
basest social disorders, adopting the spewings of 
demoniacs, lunatics, and libertines for divine oracles, 
and venturing their souls upon the tangled, contra- 
dictory, and filthy masses of double-milled demoniac 
deceit, nonsense, and lies.* 

" To Whom shall we Go ?" 
We hear much laudation of learning, enlighten- 
ment, science, and familiarity with the laws and 
operations of Nature as the grand highway to man's 
security and sublimest happiness. Suppose, then, 
that we follow supreme devotion in this line, and 
reduce the result to its last analysis as it bears upon 
the true peace of man. 

Let the devotee of knowledge and science begin 
with the beginning. Let him use his various imple- 
ments and aids and go back into the farthest past to 
which his studies of Nature can carry him, and con- 
template the dim dawn of creation and the primal 
history of our globe — the chaotic contentions of ele- 
ments undefined, the subterranean explosions which 

* See my lecture on The Wonderful Con federation ; or. The Em- 
pire of EdU, also, contained in Uriel ; or. Some Occiisional DiseourseSy 
pp. 223-257. 



CHRIST THE ONLY HOPE. 32 1 

threw up the continents, the forming of the seas, the 
progressive stages by which our planet was prepared 
for the abode of life, and the order in which all its 
living forms were placed upon it till man, its lord, 
appeared and received his crown. Wonderful things 
does he find in his path. What a cemetery of extinct 
races is before him ! What a mausoleum of departed 
worlds opens to his view ! But, having examined 
and classified every fossil and formation, and settled 
his mind on all the questions of the rocks and what 
is in them, and exhausted all the powers of re- 
search, supplemented with many a learned guess 
and shadowy inference, — what has he found to give 
him patience under affliction, confidence as to his 
own relations in the universe, comfort in view of 
death, or hope for worlds to come ? He has had 
his pleasures and surprises in the progress of his 
laborious investigations, makes for himself some- 
thing of a name among men, and is able to astonish 
people less informed than himself; but what has he 
found on which to rest his soul for security and 
eternal happiness ? 

Or let him try the sublimest of the sciences and 
proceed to weigh the planets, count the stars, meas- 
ure their distances, and ascertain their motions. Let 
him sweep through the immensity of worlds scat- 
tered like dust of silver over the vast fields of space, 
21 



322 RIGHT LIFE. 



noting all the suns and systems " that wheel un- 
shaken through the void immense," and learn all 
that telescopic observation, spectroscope, and calcu- 
lation can bring at all within his knowledge or 
belief. But, having grasped the whole amplitude 
of revolving orbs, when he comes to analyze his 
knowledge and to search it through and through 
for an answer to the question where to find a reme- 
dy for his sinfulness and adequate consolation as 
he comes to resign his breath, it is all as blank as 
the spaces between the worlds. 

Or let him try history and trace minutely the rise 
and decline of every nation, civilization, and depart- 
ment of human society, the revolutions of empire, 
the migrations of peoples, and the doings and un- 
doings that can be ascertained or guessed in the 
whole course of time. Let him philosophize on all 
the principles operative in the mutations of human 
affairs and learn all the lessons illustrated in the 
course of the ages. But, after all, to what does it 
amount ? He may see on eveiy page that man is 
a restless, depraved, mistaking, and wretched being, 
and has been so from the beginning ; that all earthly 
aggrandizement and glory is inwrought with in- 
justice and the principles of decay and death; that 
men and nations only live to die ; but what in all 
the varied phenomena of human life, apart from 



CHRIST THE ONLY HOPE. 323 

faith in God and in His Christ, has he discovered to 
give to conscience an assured peace or to the soul an 
adequate good ? 

Or let him try medicine and the sanatory art which 
ministers so beneficently to man's corporeal ailments, 
and which, if we are to believe the advertisements, 
leaves no excuse to any living mortal for suffering 
another ache or pain, or for being sick, or for ever 
growing old or ever dying. Let him pursue his 
professional search by all the aids so plentifully at 
his command, and learn the character and use of 
every bone, joint, muscle, nerve, tissue, organ, and 
component of man's body, with all the causes, 
symptoms, and possible remedies of every disease 
that flesh is heir to. Let him add to this an ex- 
haustive study of the mechanism of the mind, its 
faculties, properties, operations, and relations to the 
body. And yet what progress has he made toward 
his own preparation for death or in finding a reliable 
supreme good for his own soul ? His physics can- 
not cure his ailing spirit, neither can his metaphysics 
give him that peace and hope without which there is 
no abiding satisfaction. 

Or he may go still farther and try law, and master 
the principles, details, and applications of the most 
comprehensive jurisprudence, and know how to com- 
pute crime, apportion penalties, protect rights, and 



324 RIGHT LIFE. 



maintain justice. But will that serve to teach him 
how mortal man can be just with God, or how to 
escape the righteous dues of his own manifold trans- 
gressions ? It may help to show him the perpetual 
proneness of man to ill passion and wrong life, but 
how he is to reach salvation or possess his soul in 
peace he has not discovered. 

Nay, suppose him able to possess himself of all 
the wisdom, culture, attainment, distinction, and 
greatness which the worlds of literature, science, art, 
fortune, and grand achievement can confer upon a 
man. Let him become a Nebuchadnezzar in mag- 
nificence and dominion, an Alexander, a Croesus, a 
Xerxes, a Solon, and a Solomon, all in one, and ''gain 
the whole worldr And what is he ? A poor dying sin- 
ner who cannot think seriously of his Creator without 
dismay, who cannot spend an hour in serious thought 
without disturbing apprehensions, who cannot survey 
his grand estate without the painful reflection that a 
few days will tear him from it to rot in the place of 
bones. And when perchance he looks forward to 
the dread possibilities of a just judgment to come, 
his soul sickens in the midst of all his glory and 
sighs over a conscious destitution which nothing he 
has can supply. Having tried every earthly good, 
realized every object of ambition, drank deep from 
every earthly fountain of pleasure, he still is spirit- 



CHRIST THE ONLY HOPE. 325 

ually poor and wretched. Nebuchadnezzar's dreams 
still make him afraid, and the visions of his head 
still trouble him. Alexander still weeps with the 
nations crouching at his feet. And Solomon *' in all 
his glory " still laments that " all is vanity and vex- 
ation of spirit." 

Nor is it of any avail to dream and talk of the 
progress of the age as likely to develop some new 
foundation on which the soul can securely rest. 
After all that is said in its praise, what is this boasted 
progress of the age ? We have made some advances 
in arts and sciences, in certain kinds of knowledge, 
and perhaps in manners and civilization, but human 
nature remains the same that it always was. Not a 
faculty has been added, not a faculty or necessity 
has been superseded or eliminated. The physical 
man is the same, subject to the same laws. The in- 
tellectual stature is not higher than it was in the 
times of Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Shakespeare, and 
Milton. The wants of the soul have not diminished 
a single jot, and the supply has not been one particle 
augmented from what Christ and His apostles gave 
the world to that end. Man's spiritual nature is 
still the same arid and hopeless waste wherever the 
fertilizing streams of the grace of God have failed 
to flow, and is all the more needy from the tendency 
to ignore it and deny its existence. In spite of all 



326 RIGHT LIFE. 



our material, social, and outward progress, our na- 
ture presents the same infirmities and the same 
wants as always. The accumulated wisdom of past 
ages would cease to have any practical bearing on 
our own if this were not so. And if the progress 
of the age is to outstrip the action of the gospel, it 
must prove itself able to do for humanity what the 
gospel proposes to do, and has shown itself compe- 
tent to effect, in the lifting of man into the peace of 
reconciliation with God and immortal hope. This 
the progress of the age has never professed, and 
would only prove its silliness if it did. " The march 
of intellect and material progress comes with no 
message out of the infinite to man's spirit and heart. 
The bereaved parent or widow gathers no consola- 
tion for the bitterness of sorrow from the thought 
that the age is advancing in knowledge. The dying 
sinner, perplexed and wearied with a load that he 
cannot shake off, and oppressed with undefined ter- 
rors with which he strives in vain to cope, can derive 
no thought of peace from the recollection of the ac- 
celerated progress of the age. It seems, on the con- 
trary, to mock his palsied energies, to deride his 
nameless and involuntary fears. No ; these are the 
times to make us feel our impotence in the want of 
a trustworthy, credible assurance that we are verily 
at peace with God. No material or social progress, 



CHRIST THE ONLY HOPE. 327 

no advancement of science, can give us this. As 
long as there is death in the world, and sorrow, we 
shall want a message, not from the development of 
our own powers, not from the resources of our own 
disguised weakness, but from God, all the more wel- 
come as its credentials are good." * 

But " to whom shall we go" for it? We appeal 
to all the boasted wisdom of the age outside of the 
old, old story of the Cross, but there is no such 
message. We appeal to the rocks and mountains, 
but they have no covering to shelter the unbelieving 
from " the wrath of the Lamb." We ask of the roll- 
ing worlds, but even the spheres have no music to 
charm the anxious soul to rest. We interrogate the 
records of the past, but they tell of naught but 
hopes blasted, aspirations unsatisfied, and endless 
changes that brought not the coveted blessedness. 
We go to the physician, the philosopher, the jurist 
inquiring for some remedy for these moral aches and 
spiritual ailments, but they prescribe and direct in 
vain. We go out under all auspices, in every direc- 
tion, asking, " Where shall wisdom be found ?" 
" Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow 
myself before the high God ?" " What shall I do 
that I may inherit eternal life ?" We repeat our in- 
quiries amid all the walks and works and wonders 

* Leathes's Witness of St. Patd to Christ, pp. 218-223. 



328 RIGHT LIFE. 



of creation. And after all the search and research, 
with no further fields left to be explored, we are 
obliged either to give up in blank despair or take 
our stand with Peter, look into the face of the won- 
derful Galilean, and find in Him " the Way, the 
Truth, and the Life." 

Ah, yes ; the world's salvation and the only hope 
of man stand in that meek Nazarene, " who was con- 
ceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, 
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, 
and buried, descended into hell, the third day rose 
again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sit- 
teth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, 
whence He shall come to judge the quick and the 
dead." He has the words of eternal life, and only 
He. In His nature and offices the severance be- 
tween God and man ceases to be an impassable 
chasm, and there is reconciliation between offended 
sovereignty and every transgressor willing to be 
saved. In Him is the attractive love, the availing 
power, and the living proposal to be to every weary, 
burdened, and ailing soul a Prince and Saviour, giv- 
ing peace by giving hope. In Him is the true model 
and exemplar of that dutifulness to God and service 
of man by which humanity attains its right and 
most wholesome position in the universe. In Him 
is the divine impersonation of all the needful help 



CHRIST THE ONLY HOPE. 329 

for the accomplishment of our sublimest destiny, 
being made " wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, 
and redemption " to every one that beHeveth. In 
Him is the requisite sympathy for the suffering, for- 
giveness for the guilty, cleansing for the impure, 
and forthcoming of merciful self-sacrifice for the sav- 
ing of the lost. In Him is the power of love and 
goodness to draw and renew the heart, to cheer it in 
its sorrows and conflicts, to give it victory over the 
antagonizing world, to comfort and assure it in the 
hour of death, and to awaken in it a conscious com- 
munion with Heaven, which neither life nor death, 
things present nor things to come, can ever interrupt 
or destroy. His simple ^N or di^/^ Come unto Me;'' 
''Folloiv Me ;'' ''Learn of Me ;'' '' I have given you an 
example that ye should do as I have done I' — are the 
brightest and most brightening treasures that ever 
have found place in our world, and from them have 
come the holiest and sweetest light and comfort and 
peace and hope and joy that ever thrilled in human 
hearts or that now lives in any of earth's inhabitants. 
Many lowly and despised have heard them, and been 
transformed into noble saints and grand apostles and 
holy martyrs and blessed children of light, shining 
like a river of stars along the firmament of the ages. 
And if in all this wide world there is any such thing 
as Right Life and eternal good for man, its spring- 



330 RIGHT LIFE. 



head is Jesus, and its realization is in the beheving 
embrace, and following of Him. 

This, then, dear friends, must stand : The centre 
of the universe is the living God. The centre of 
human hope is Jesus Christ. And the centre of all 
Right Life is faith in Him. " He that hath the Son 
hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God hath 
not life." On all sides we find ourselves shut in to 
this. And \i any still prefer to take and worship 
the atheistic trinity: Humanity, the World, and Space, 
instead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
we can only pity and regret the sorrowfulness of 
their aberration, which finds no ear open to the voice 
of prayer and has no better outlook than a life 
of sorrow and mystery, to end in absorption into an 
ideal over which Death holds eternal reign. 

This truth must still stand firm, that the universe 
has no hope for man but in Jesus Christ. 



LECTURE TWELFTH. 

jFaitfj anti anbeltet 

Mark 9 : 24 : And straightway the father of the child cried out, 
and said with tears, Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief. 

THE proposal at the beginning of this series of 
discourses was to give some special talks about 
the foundation-elements of Bible religion and Right 
Life. We have now had most of the main topics 
before us. 

Of necessity, the presentations had to be some- 
what cursory, disjointed, and brief A full, connected 
discussion of so wide and deep a subject could not 
be given in a space so limited and in discourses in- 
tended for a promiscuous audience. Looking back 
upon what has been said, I find that much more had 
to be left unsaid. Nevertheless, if those who have 
given me their attention have seriously taken in what 
has been presented, I am persuaded that they are in 
position for a reasonable understanding of the 
grounds on which our Christian faith rests, of the 
nature and seriousness of its claims upon every one's 
acceptance, and of the indispensable necessity of con- 

331 



332 RIGHT LIFE. 



ditioning our thinking and conduct to it in order to 
secure the true goal of our being or the reahzation 
of Right Life. If any have been sincerely anxious 
to find the truth, the way, I think, has been suffi- 
ciently indicated. If any have been troubled with 
honest doubts, it seems to me that we have fairly 
reasoned out what should answer all such difficulties 
and dispose every open and candid mind to a favor- 
able judgment of the Christian faith, and unhesitat- 
ingly to say, " Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine 
unbelief" 

The main object had in view has been, by divine 
help, to strengthen wavering Christians in their 
faith ; to assist them in the handling of themselves 
when assailed by the many subtle forms of atheism 
and unbelief of which the whole atmosphere of our 
modern world is full ; to offer to persons whose 
minds are blank as to any established belief some 
opportunity to understand and consider the merits 
and claims of Christianity ; and to give a word of 
remonstration to such as have been drawn aside 
from what they once professed, and whose present 
indifference or sullenness toward religion and faith 
are eating away the better spirit in which they were 
brought up. 

There has been but little thought of making an 
impression on confirmed skeptics. Such might, 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 333 

indeed, also learn some needful and salutary lessons 
from what has been said ; but there is something in 
the very nature of atheistic unbelief which tends to 
put its abettors beyond the reach of instruction. 
When a man has once placed himself on the atheistic 
foundation, his chances for coming to the knowledge 
of the truth are wellnigh over. Even a miraculous 
demonstration from heaven, like that which turned 
Saul of Tarsus from his persecuting madness, would 
hardly suffice to turn a pronounced and thorough 
unbeliever. He has placed himself so far beyond 
the range of spiritual sensibility that there is very 
little left on which religious argument can take hold. 
There is no common ground between him and it on 
which to plant a lever to move his moral feelings or 
to awaken and command his convictions. We can- 
not forswear him, for he acknowledges no right ac- 
countability. Solemn appeal has but little chance 
with him, for he has turned all solemnity to ridicule. 
It is absurd to have him kiss the Book and obligate 
his soul by its revelations, for it is no more to him 
than so much soiled paper. It is a mockery to have 
him lift up his hand, for that is an appeal to an om- 
niscient Judge whose very existence he counts a 
mere dream of superstition. We cannot swear him 
even by his own life, for that is to him only a phe- 
nomenal accident, presently to vanish like a dis- 



334 RIGHT LIFE. 



persed cloud which ceases to exist. And such are 
the nature and effect of his negations that everything 
is swept away on which to arraign him even to him- 
self, or on which to fasten a cord to bind his soul to 
any moral or religious basis of thought. 

Such people have much to say about reason ; but, 
after all, reason to them, so far as religious matters 
are concerned, is simply each one's own individual 
feeling, desire, or conceit, with no two cases alike. 
Each sees things according to his own distorted vision, 
low standpoint, and inveterate prejudices, and the 
only reason in the case is that so they think and 
judge, and, as they acknowledge no higher umpire, 
everything to the contrary is unreason and absurdity. 
Gibbon, himself one of the class to whom he refers, 
accurately described the situation when he said, " TJie 
stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by a secret, in- 
curable suspicion!' And such a condition of mental 
and moral receptivity, or rather non-receptivity, 
necessarily disables the approaches of sacred truth. 
Though it should be as plain and evident as the sun 
in the heavens to men of right vision, open eyes, and 
hearts in the right place, a confirmed infidel is seldom 
able to see it. The state of mind and heart which he 
has taken on in taking the ground on which he stands 
shuts out the light, even though poured upon him in 
the broad intensity of summer mid-day. 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 335 

In nearly every other sort of error and sin there 
is still some avenue of access to the soul, and hence 
for the bringing of it back to righteousness ; but 
when a man has once put himself in the attitude 
and condition of an atheist, his whole moral nature 
seems turned to ashes, and there is but little hope 
of his recovery to moral saneness and truth. There 
have been instances of the conversion of very pro- 
nounced infidels, but they have not been numerous. 
For the most part, to argue with skeptics of that 
class only gratifies their self-conceit and rejoices 
their ill minds with opportunity to vent their ma- 
lignant blasphemy. 

There are proper times and ways in which gain- 
sayers are to be met and fools answered according 
to their folly. Sometimes also we encounter " un- 
ruly and vain talkers and deceivers, whose mouths 
must be stopped." If men are honest, they will not 
refuse to give heed to sound doctrine, and will seek 
the truth and hold themselves under bonds to accept 
and obey it ; but if they are made up to be their 
own God and law of right, without acknowledg- 
ment of any higher power or responsibility, " having 
their consciences seared as with a hot iron," we can 
do no better than to disregard their blatancy, and let 
them drift on in their self-chosen folly to the ruin 
which they have preresolved to brave. If God in His 



336 RIGHT LIFE. 



abounding goodness and mercy rescues any of them 
from their dehumanizing self-entanglements, we will 
bless and magnify His grace ; and if, in their dislike 
of truth and hatred toward everything divine, they 
be given over to believe lies and perish, we may 
well be sorry for their fate, but must nevertheless 
bless and magnify Jehovah's righteous judgments; 
but our efforts can be of little avail in bringing them 
to a right mind.* 

* And yet, perhaps, we should not be too despondent with regard 
to the conversion of avowed skeptics. There never was a more bit- 
ter enemy of Christianity than Saul of Tarsus, and yet he was changed 
into the noblest of the apostles of Christ. 

In the second century the Grecian philosopher Athenagoras set out 
to write a book against the Christian religion, but while gathering his 
materials and posting himself for his purpose the blaze of the Chris- 
tian evidences completely changed his mind, and his intended invec- 
tive became an elaborate apology, which still exists among the treas- 
ures of early Christian literature. 

Count Struensee, the distinguished Danish prime minister under 
Christian VII., was long a decided and zealous infidel ; but when, in 
misfortune, he entered into a more thorough and candid examination 
of the question, he was not only convinced of his error, but made full 
avowal of his faith in Christianity and of his sincere penitence for 
what he once did against it. 

Sir Isaac Newton set out in life a clamorous infidel ; but when he 
came to institute a careful examination of the Christian evidences he 
found reason to change his mind, and became a decided Christian. 

Alexander Hamilton, one of the ablest men who participated in 
the framing of the government of this country, was once very decided 
in his feelings against the Christian religion, and took pleasure in 
disparaging and ridiculing it and its professors. On one occasion, as 
related by himself, he had been expressing himself so profanely re- 
specting Christianity that on returning to his lodgings he began to 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 337 

Nevertheless, it should not disturb any one's con- 
fidence in the doctrines of our holy religion that 
there is in our day so much haughty challenging of 
them and brazen unbelief respecting them. It is no 
proof of better knowledge, or that the world has 
grown wiser than the Bible or better than Jesus, 

feel alarmed at his own utterances. The thought came to him, 
" What if the Christian religion be true, after all ? Shall I laugh at 
that which, if true, will laugh me to scorn in the day of judgment?" 
He felt that there was no guarantee against the possibility of Chris- 
tianity being true, and as long as that possibility remained it was very 
foolish to treat it with levity. So he determined to make an exami- 
nation of the Christian evidences, and applied to a clergyman for the 
necessary books. He studied those evidences, and his great mind 
became perfectly clear that the gospel is true and that Jesus is verily 
the Son of God. 

Gilbert "West and Lord Littleton were both avowed skeptics, and 
were so fully satisfied that the Bible is an imposture that they each 
resolved to expose it. For their particular topics one chose the res- 
urrection of Christ and the other the conversion of St. Paul. To 
write intelligently on these subjects they were obliged to study them 
thoroughly. The result was the conversion of both, and their in- 
tended essays for the exposure and refutation of Christianity were 
turned into two strong treatises in vindication of its claims. 

Nelson, the author of a book on infidelity, states that in a number 
of instances he had succeeded in getting confessed infidels to give a 
candid reading to some book on the Christian evidences, and that in 
every such instance the result was conviction of the truth of Chris- 
tianity, unless two cases in which he had no opportunity of learning 
the result were exceptions. 

Doubtless, if skeptics could be induced to make thorough and 
honest examination of the Christian evidences there would be many 
instances of such happy changes. Yes, if ; but there is the rub. 
Having built themselves up with specious arguments in favor of the 
unbelief which suits them, they are mostly inaccessible to the truth, 
and no human words can change them. 
22 



338 RIGHT LIFE. 



because there are people who venture to say so. 
We might naturally anticipate just such manifesta- 
tions. The progress of modern achievement, free- 
dom, and intelligence has greatly inflated human 
self-consequence, and whatever tends to humble it, 
as the gospel does, and presses the doctrine of 
dependent obligation to a living and omnipresent 
God, and insists on man's utter hopelessness without 
Christ, necessarily is very unpalatable to the spirit 
of the times. Hence the increase of sneering un- 
belief and conceited antagonism. 

Human pride is never amiable toward what does 
not flatter it. The presence of police is never wel- 
come to wrong-doers. Lust is always resentful and 
rebellious toward restraints upon its liberty and in- 
terferences with its gratifications. The world, there- 
fore, has never been wanting in skeptics, unbelievers, 
and harsh faultfinders with true religion. As shadows 
show themselves in sunshine, so carping contradic- 
tion has always appeared along with the light of 
revelation, and deepened into the greater malignity 
in proportion to the brightness and prevalence of the 
truth. Such has been the history from the beginning. 

Hardly had a word from God been spoken on 
earth until there came a subtle and malignant spirit 
to question and dispute it. To the credit of human- 
ity, however, the first demonstration in that line was 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 339 

made by the devil, when he insinuated into the mind 
of Eve that God was not the right sort of God, and 
was not doing the right thing with His children. 
Let it never be forgotten that it was Satan himself 
who gave out the first teaching that the divine Word 
is nothing but falsehood, a thing in the way of man's 
better illumination, an arbitrary imposition upon the 
freedom of human enjoyment, and an impertinent 
hindering of men from becoming deities themselves. 
All the more important is it to bear this in remem- 
brance that when we meet with such teaching we 
may know and be sure to whose academy it belongs. 
Nay, the spirit of infidelity and unbelief in all ages 
has carried in it the marks of this its unflattering 
original. 

Not long had the divine order anticipative of the 
promised Redeemer been established until the first 
man born of woman became skeptical about some of 
its provisions, took upon him to reject the doctrine 
of sin and atonement by blood, and ventured to 
substitute for it something more rational and aesthetic. 
But he was also the first murderer, and by the inspi- 
ration of his sullen dissatisfaction with God wilfully 
destroyed his brother's life. 

The great body of the people in the days of Enoch 
and Noah became skeptics in religion, despisers of 
divine institutes, contemners of sacred teaching and 



340 RIGHT LIFE. 



prediction ; and they so filled the world with revelry, 
debauchery, and violence as to dissolve the whole 
order of society, and plunged the race into the most 
terrible calamity ever experienced next after the fall 
in Paradise. 

Hardly had the waters of the Flood subsided 
until the mass of Noah's seed relapsed into apostasy, 
undertook to improve on the commands and appoint- 
ments of God, made unto themselves gods according 
to their supposed better understanding of the princi- 
ples of Nature, and perpetuated their inventions with 
ever-varying additions from generation to generation, 
even making it one of the offices of government to 
punish, banish, or destroy whoever dared to testify 
for the living God or interfere with their devilish 
superstitions and abominations. It was the imperial 
high priests of paganism who ordered the butcher}'' 
of the saints. 

The Hebrew people, chosen and constituted to 
be the special conservators of the divine Word and 
ordinances in the midst of an apostate world, soon 
sank away from the spirit and life of what was com- 
mitted to them, turned infidels to their holy trust, 
exalted their own self-will into the place of the holy 
oracles, and when the meek and spotless Word in- 
carnate came among them took the side of unbelief, 
dogged His steps, arrested Him in His retirement, 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 34 1 

destroyed His life, and did what they could to ex- 
terminate all who believed in Him. 

The great intellectual awakening of the recent 
centuries, which brought the evangely of God from 
under the bushel of the Dark Ages and set it on 
its proper candlestick for the illumination of the 
nations, served also to develop whole brigades of 
infidels and atheists, making war upon the Church, 
filling vast realms with terrorism and blood, and 
shouting the battle-cry of " Crush the wretch ! crush 
the wretch f as they contemplated our anointed 
Lord and Saviour. 

And as human nature is ever the same perverse, 
egotistic, and resentful thing, glad to do away with 
the restraints and punishments of its lusts and pride, 
we need not be surprised that with the vast growth 
of intelligence, liberty, and material prosperity in 
our day, the community should abound with men 
and women and youths who make a merit of ignor- 
ing and rejecting what they have never studied or 
half understood of divine things, or that noisy talk- 
ers should make it their business to go about with 
every blandishment, cunning, wit, and pretence of 
devotion to the higher good of the race, to corrupt 
the minds of men with jests and jeers at everything 
sacred, to rail against our religious faith and creed, 
to ridicule the Bible, which they have failed to un- 



342 RIGHT LIFE. 



derstand, and even to challenge God Almighty as 
a myth. Just so long as the divine long-suffering 
forbears and waits, and the originator of all contra- 
diction to Jehovah's Word is allowed freedom to 
tempt and seduce, our depraved humanity will fur- 
nish people to pervert, deny, and blaspheme the 
only saving truth. Their presence and numerous 
increase in such times as ours is not at all anoma- 
lous. Nay, it is what the Scriptures themselves 
foretell to come to pass more and more as this pres- 
ent world nears the great day of coming judgment. 
The ages of greatest privilege have always been the 
ages in which human nature has most resisted the 
truth, most abused its opportunities, and most dis- 
honored its Creator. And so it will continue to be 
until the Lord shall rise up in His majesty for the 
vindication of His people and reward the ungodly 
for their unholy deeds and hard speeches.* 

* " The truth, like Him who gave it, will akuays be a sign which 
shall be spoken against. The forms of the enmity may change, the 
coarser and more brutal accusations of one age may give place to 
the subtler charges of another, but so long as an ungodly world 
exists the enmity itself will remain and will find utterance." — 
Trench's Ilidsean Lectures, p. lo. 

" Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, 
and being deceived. . . . For the time will come when they will 
not endure sound doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall heap to 
themselves teachers, having itching ears ; and they shall turn away 
their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." — Paul's 
Second Letter to TimotJiyy ch. 3 : 13 ; 4 : 3, 4. 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 343 

But we are not to conclude that because infidelity 
and atheism thus continue unto the end there is any 
foregone necessity for it, or that men are infidels and 
atheists because they cannot be anything else. As 
Pascal long ago said, " There is light enough for 
those whose sincere desire is to see it, and darkness 
enough for those who are of a contrary disposition. 
There is brightness enough to illuminate those who 
seek illumination, and enough of obscurity to hum- 
ble them. There is obscurity enough to blind the 
reprobate, and brightness enough to condemn them 
and leave them without excuse." 

Nay, it is a good deal more than questionable 
whether any of our professed doubters and declared 
unbelievers have ever tried in serious earnest to 
ascertain whether our Christian religion is really 
from God or not. Their alleged examinations are 
really no examinations at all, and have generally 
been conducted under such an inveterate prejudice 
or in such a reckless and unspiritual temper that no 

" There shall come in the last days scoffers, walkmg after their 
own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming ? for 
since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from 
the beginning of the creation." — Peter's Second Epistle, ch. 3 : 3, 4. 

" Beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of 
the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ ; how that they told you there 
should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own 
ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, 
having not the Spirit." — Jude's Epistle, 17-19. 



344 RIGHT LIFE. 



right discernment was or is possible. " In order to 
give any weight to their objections they ought to 
urge that they have exerted their utmost endeavors 
and have used all the means of information which 
Christianity recommends, without obtaining satisfac- 
tion. If they could say this, they would indeed 
attack religion in one of its professions, but no one 
of them can speak after this manner ; and while 
they cannot honestly so declare their negligence is 
insufferable." * 

If men are in solemn earnest, such as the moment- 
ousness of the matter demands from every one, then 
it is their bounden duty to test the question upon 
those evidences which Christianity itself propounds 
as the infallible proofs of its divinity. And the par- 
ticular test most emphatically laid down by Chris- 
tianity's great Author is the experimental one. His 
word is, ''If any man will do the will of the Father, 
he shall know of the doctrine^ whether it be of God " 
(John 7 : 17). This is the heavenly challenge to 
every skeptic and unbeliever on earth, and God here 
positively pledges to let everything go by default, 
and to exonerate the unbeliever from all blame, if 
this test be honestly made without bringing full con- 
viction to him who tries it. 

But who of all our atheistic free-thinkers can 

* Pascal's T/iout://fs. 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 345 

claim to have made this experiment? Who of them 
is willing to accept the challenge and to submit to 
this fair and faithfully proposed arbitrament ? And 
if a man is not prepared to try the divine claims of 
Christianity in the way on which it proposes to 
prove and demonstrate its divinity, it is useless for 
him to make pretence of honest and fair dealing in 
the matter. To decline the challenge is to admit 
that there is no sincere desire to know the truth, or 
that its value is held to be less than the pains to 
learn it. It is therefore sheer hypocrisy for such to 
claim any say on the subject, and an insufferable im- 
pertinence on their part to undertake to pronounce it 
all nonsense and falsehood. 

For people laying claim to superior wisdom and 
enlightenment to sit around a given piece of mechan- 
ism debating and arguing whether it is a musical in- 
strument or not, so long as there is no practical trial 
of it, is imbecility. Right reason says, " Go up to 
it, touch it, test it, put competent fingers on the keys, 
strike the chords, and find out." And when the 
soul of latent melody is awakened, and the thing 
thrills with the spirit of tune and song and harmony, 
and fills the whole house with the concord of sweet 
sounds, there will be no more place for question 
whether it is a musical instrument or not. 

It is much the same with Christianity, which pro- 



34^ RIGHT LIFE. 



fesses and claims to be the great instrument of God 
for the giving of music to this sad and sorrowful 
world. Surface views are of but little worth for 
ascertaining its real nature and divine glory. Men 
must come to it, feel after its inner spirit, enter into 
its purposes, try it according to its Originator's 
intent, and take hold so as to draw forth into living 
utterance what lies slumbering in it, and there will 
be no lack of proof that it is the very wisdom and 
power of God unto salvation to every one that 
beheveth. And if people disdain to make this 
trial, they estop themselves from any right to say 
that the gospel cannot prove its own claims.* 

There is no evidence of the truth of Christianity- 
like the personal experiences of him who honestly 
and fully embraces it. " He hath the witness in 
himself" The best proof that we are alive is to 
live. Having experimental knowledge of life and 
performing the functions of life, we are sure that we 
are alive. And when the God-spirit enters our being 
and pulsates through it, and animates us with all 
spiritual emotions, impulses, and activities, filling 
our souls with peace and anchoring our hopes and 
hearts to the continent of nearing glory, we can 

* The first page of the gospel indicates how doubt is to be silenced, 
where Philip replied to Nathanael's unbelief: " Covie and JcY." 
Christianity cannot be demonstrated to anybody who sees and ex- 
periences nothing of it. 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 347 

have no truer or more certain proof that the thing 
is verily of God. 

There is, indeed, no lack of other witnesses. 
Myriads in every age have experimentally tried the 
gospel, and for a score of centuries have been giving 
out their rejoicing attestations to its divine power 
and blessedness. In this number are many of the 
best and greatest that have lived. It certainly is a 
little too much to ask us to believe that Paul was a 
fool, that Augustine was crazy, that Chrysostom was 
an idiot, that Luther was a fanatic, that Bacon and 
Pascal and Newton were lunatics, and that the noble 
spirits who did most to shape our whole modern 
civilization were all beside themselves. But if they 
were true and sober men — men of intelligence, up- 
rightness, candor, and capacity to judge in matters 
so momentous — then Christianity is true, and the 
gospel of Christ is of God; for so they unequivo- 
cally testified in life and in death. Out of all situa- 
tions and emergencies — from the stake, the dungeon, 
the battlefield, the mountain-cave, the sinking ship, 
the chamber of sickness, and the grave's mouth, as 
well as from surroundings and beatitudes of highest 
fame, dignity, and honor in this world — comes the 
million-tongued testimony to the reality of the grace 
of God in Christ Jesus, and its sufficiency for all who 
commit themselves to it. 



348 RIGHT LIFE. 



It would indeed be hard to show, or even con- 
ceive, how the truths of Christianity could be bet- 
ter or more consistently attested than they are. 
All the evidences by which anything can be proved 
are present in this case. Evidences from history, 
antiquities, national customs, geography, and topog- 
raphy strengthen it on every side. The works of 
Jews and heathen, the attacks of enemies, and the 
apologies of friends bear witness to our Chris- 
tian Scriptures. The buried marvels of Nineveh, 
disentombed after long ages ; the silent catacombs, 
opened after many centuries ; the awful chambers 
of the Pyramids, penetrated in these later years, — 
all have voices testifying to the historic verity of 
the Bible. The rock-inscriptions of the Sinaitic 
valleys, the discovered temples and stones of Moab 
and Bashan, are eloquent with varied testimonies. 
The cherished traditions of the Nestorians, the 
names of passes and mountains and fortresses in 
Afghanistan, and the documents, habits, and his- 
tory of the Jewish colony discovered in the interior 
of China, are all witnessing to the reality and con- 
sistency of the Bible narratives. In Palestine and 
Egypt and Syria each stone has a voice, each moun- 
tain an echo, each city a history, each village a mem- 
ory, all proclaiming that the gospel records are true. 
The history of Greece and Rome, Chaldea and Per- 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 349 

sia, of Tyre and Sidon, Judea and Egypt, even as 
written by unbelievers, is at times expressed in terms 
wonderfully accordant with the words of prophetic 
Scripture written ages before the events. And so 
long as the Jordan overflows its banks at harvest 
from the melting of the snows of Lebanon ; so long 
as the waters of Gennesaret lave the ruins of Caper- 
naum and the hillsides of Gadara; so long as the 
Tigris and the Euphrates flow by Nineveh and 
Babylon, and the Nile pours down her fertilizing 
waters through Goshen to the sea; so long as 
Kishon waters the foot of Carmel, and Abana and 
Pharpar make the plains of Damascus the garden 
of Syria, — so long will the waters of the earth make 
harmony to the song that the Lord, even the mighty 
God, has spoken to us in the books of Moses, by the 
pen of Samuel, the harp of David, the tears of Jer- 
emiah, the odes of Isaiah, and the visions of Eze- 
kiel ; yea, so long will men be constrained to confess 
that the Gospels of the evangelists and the Epistles 
of the apostles express the sure testimony of God 
and His everlasting covenant to such as hear His 
Word and open their hearts to His saving grace.* 
But if any one still thinks he has just reason for 
doubt, let him be honest with his soul and hum- 

* See a Lecture by J. Gritton on Christianity not the Inventien of 
Impostors or of Credulous Enthtisiasts. 



350 RIGHT LIFE. 



bly submit himself to do the will of the Father so 
clearly revealed, and he shall know of the doctrine 
whether it be of God. If this does not dissolve 
the doubt and work full conviction, the fault will be 
with God and what claims to be His Word ; other- 
wise the fault must rest with the doubter himself, 
puttmg him under ban of condemnation for insin- 
cerity which admits of no exculpation. 

But there is a further consideration in the case 
which ought to have decisive weight with all hon- 
est-minded and prudent people. 

There are some who claim to be sincere, who are 
not destitute of religious sensibility and respect for 
Christianity, but who profess honest scruples about 
the whole subject of religion. They are half in- 
clined to faith, and say they wish to be right, but 
cannot settle their minds that there is sufficient cer- 
tainty for them to adventure. They see and feel the 
important implications of the question, but are in 
doubt as to what their course should be. They 
would be sorry to miss the truth, and they don't 
want to believe lies, but what is the truth or what 
the lie in the case they are at a loss to discover. 
Therefore they would rather not be pressed to a 
decision, and claim that it would be assuming un- 
warrantable risk to come to a fixed conclusion 
either way. 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 35 I 

But if such people are persuading" themselves that 
they avoid all risks by trying to maintain a position 
of neutrality and suspense, they do most egregiously 
deceive themselves. Men must decide, and by 
declining to decide they do decide. As Pascal has 
said, " TJiere is a necessity to wager ; the thing, is 
placed beyond your will; you are actually em- 
barked in it ; and by not laying that there is a 
God you in effect lay that there is no God." If your 
choice is not to decide either for or against, you cer- 
tainly fail to become a believer; and, failing to become 
a believer, you necessarily forfeit all the worth and 
treasures of faith. By declining to risk it either 
way, you take the greatest risk of which the case 
admits. And as there is no escape from risk, the 
best and wisest thing to be done is to compute the 
risks both ways, and then decide for that course 
which in any event jeopards the least. 

How, then, does the matter stand ? 

First of all, we can safely assume that a man takes 
no great risk by taking the side of earnest faith over 
against the side of unbelief and atheism. To accept 
and live up to the doctrines of revealed religion can 
be no serious harm or disability to any one. It docs 
not make a man any less a gentleman, any worse 
citizen, or any less useful a member of society. The 
very best, noblest, most useful, and most worthy 



352 RIGHT LIFE. 



men that have lived were devout Christians. The 
skeptic has no real advantage in these respects over 
a sincere believer. An infidel is no better father, 
husband, brother, friend, ruler, or subject by reason 
of his infidelity than a true and conscientious Chris- 
tian. He cannot meet the inevitable trials and sor- 
rows of life with any better temper or to any better 
advantage than one who accepts and lives to our 
holy faith. He cannot contemplate death, whether 
in his friends or in his own case, with any more 
composure or with any better consolation for his 
soul. He cannot have a more satisfying solution of 
the enigma of human life and destiny, and cannot 
face the mysterious future with any more peace of 
mind, fortitude of spirit, or joyous anticipation. And 
even on the infidel theory that all the great truths 
of our faith are nothing but empty dreams, the 
devout adherent of them is not a whit worse off 
than the unbeliever. He loses nothing fit to enlist 
the human soul by holding firmly to his faith. His 
mistake, should it prove a mistake, does not damage 
him in any way worth his consideration. His futurity 
would be precisely the same harmless nothingness 
on which the atheist counts. No one can don}- that 
this is a fair statement of the case on the supposition 
that the atheist may perchance be right and the Chris- 
tian wrong. 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 353 

But suppose, in the next place, that it should turn 
out that the Christian is right and the unbeliever 
wrong ? The supposition in the one case is certainly 
as reasonable as in the other. The creed of infidel 
philosophy has no greater guarantee of certainty 
than the Christian has for what he accepts and 
believes. To say the most for infidelity that can in 
reason be claimed for it, it is every whit as liable to 
turn out a gigantic mistake as that Christianity 
should. Looking at the foundations in the two 
cases, it would be worse than nonsense to dispute 
this point. Suppose, then, that the presentations in 
the gospel should finally prove to be all that is 
claimed for them in Christian faith, and that every- 
thing contrary thereto should prove to be nothing 
but a concatenation of Satanic lies, as I believe there 
is reason enough to anticipate, what will then be the 
situation of him who has linked the eternal fortunes 
of his soul to those wicked negations ? Will he lose 
nothing by his mistake ? The gospel proving true, 
as I am confident that it will, what star of hope or 
ray of comfort or taste of peace can ever come to 
the mad contemner of its God, the rejector of its 
Christ, and the neglecter of its great salvation ? The 
plain word is, " He that believeth not the Son shall 
not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him " 
(John 3 : 36). And a thousand-thousand-fold worse 

23 



354 mCHT LIFE. 



off will be the unbeliever then than if he had never 
been born. In other words, he risks his all, with 
nothing to be gained by it, while the faithful Chris- 
tian risks nothing, and yet is in position to gain 
everything. 

And in such a case as this what possible excuse 
can there be for suspense or hesitation ? With the 
clear opportunity to place ourselves where losing 
we lose nothing, and gaining we gain everything, it 
is beyond all shadow of a question the wisest thing 
to do it rather than halt where gaining we gain noth- 
ing, and losing we lose everything. 

And if, indeed, there be a risk in making such a 
decision, it is the risk we can best afford to take. 
Supposing the chances equal, and that you had two 
lives to gain and but one to lose, you could well 
afford to venture for the two against the one, rather 
than for the one against the two. Were there ten 
to win against one to lose, it would be a most silly 
thing to risk the ten to one. But here is an equiv- 
alent of numberless lives to be won on no greater 
risk than for one ; and the stake adventured is so 
petty a thing at most that it is a crying sin and 
stark madness to hesitate. Every principle of right 
reason and prudence cries out to the halting doubter, 
" O foolish mortal ! wherefore thy hesitancy ? Thou 
seest the advantageous side; close with it while thou 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 355 

mayest, lest death come and for ever end thy oppor- 
tunity. Thou sinnest against all the grand possibil- 
ities of thine existence by thy indecision. If thou 
hast honest doubt, give it in favor of what cannot 
harm, and suffer it not to suspend thy soul where 
thou mayest any moment lose a possible eternal 
heaven." 

No man can afford to wait for absolute certainty 
in everything, and cannot have it if he does wait. 
As we are situated in this world, we must be con- 
tent with the balancing of likelihoods, probabilities, 
and dangers, and decide and venture without dem- 
onstrations. Atheism has no demonstratiojis, and why 
prefer it to Christianity when all the odds are so 
vastly the other way ? The side of safety is the side of 
faith, and all rational manhood, all duty to one's self, 
and all the untried possibilities of our being, demand 
that it should be promptly accepted and embraced.* 

■^ Even Lord Byron, though so far from being a Christian himself, 
had the sagacity to see and the candor to confess that " indisputably 
the firm believers in the gospel have a great advantage over all others, 
for this simple reason : that if true they will have their revi^ard here- 
after, and if there be no hereafter they can be but with the infidel in 
his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through 
life, without subsequent disappointment, since, at the worst for them, 
* out of nothing, nothing can arise,' not even sorrow." 

And in such a case as this the words of Archbishop Tillotson 
pointedly apply — namely : " There is no greater argument of a man's 
weakness than irresolution in matters of mighty consequence when 
both the importance of the thing and exigency of the present cir- 
cumstances require a speedy resolution." 



356 RIGHT LIFE. 



It is sometimes spoken to the reproach of Chris- 
tianity that it has nothing but hell for the infidel. 
It is an adroit Satanic slander. Christianity pro- 
poses the same heaven to the infidel that it pro- 
poses to any one else, if he will but accept it. It is 
freely offered to him, and can be had for the taking ; 
and if he won't have it, the hell he speaks of is a 
thing of his own choosing, and not a thing of Chris- 
tianity's making. Unfortunately for the infidel, his 
system has no heaven for any one, not even for its 
most devoted apostles ; and if infidelity itself has no 
heaven for infidels, it is hardly consistent to demand 
that Christianity should have. The heaven of Chris- 
tianit}" has its essence in supreme love to God and 
communion with Him ; and if the atheist will not so 
much as believe there is a God, but elects to blas- 
pheme His Name and revile his government, he makes 
his own hell, and cannot blame Christianity for it. 

An able thinker has said that " hell is truth seen 
too late ;" and if men wilfully ignore the truth while 
in this world, and shut their eyes to it, and do not 
make devout and earnest efTort to find it while they 
may, they have no right to complain if in the eternal 
administrations they should be compelled to face it 
when it is too late to profit by it. 

There is no danger that any infidel will ever be 
condemned for honesty. Christianity teaches that 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 357 

God loves the honest man. And if there is any 
such thing as an upright and conscientious atheist, 
he will doubtless be treated as any upright and con- 
scientious rebel or traitor can properly be treated 
by the government whose laws he defies and whose 
authority he seeks to overthrow. 

But honesty is an affair of the heart and con- 
science, and not a thing of words and pretence. 
No man's conscience ever constrains him to deny 
and blaspheme God. No man's honest convictions 
ever force him to reject and violate the Ten Com- 
mandments. No man's moral sense ever compels 
him to attack and denounce Jesus Christ as a fanatic, 
an impostor, and a liar. And, on the ground of 
honesty and uprightness, to expect and demand a 
place in heaven for the doing of such things evi- 
dences a moral insanity so deep that its presence 
would make Paradise a pandemonium. 

There can be no heaven without heavenly affec- 
tions. And if a man refuses to know God, so as to 
love, obey, and trust in Him as the supreme good 
and law of the soul, which is heaven already begun 
in the believer's heart, he has only himself to fault 
if he should find the universe at length nothing but 
hell to him.* 

* " Where the soul hath the full measure and complement of 
happiness, where the boundless appetite of that spirit remains so 



358 RIGHT LIFE. 



It is the glory of Christianity that it has a Hving 
and loving God to whom we can look and pray, a 
competent and approachable Saviour to whom the 
weary and sorrowing and sinful may come and rest 
them on His ample bosom, and an unfading heaven 
for every one that believeth. God comes to man in 
Jesus, man comes to God in Jesus ; and this grand 
at-oiie-ment in yesus is the consummation of Right 
Life and the true blessedness of heaven. If the 
infidel will have this heaven, he can have it on the 
same terms with any other sinner. If any one will 
believe the presentation and take it, heaven is his ; 
otherwise, in the very nature of the case, his very 
unbelief is an irremediable self-disinheritance. " For 
God sent not His Son into the world to condemn 
the world ; but that the world through Him might 

completely satisfied that it can desire neither addition nor alteration — 
that, I think, is truly heaven ; and this can only be in the enjoyment 
of that Essence whose infinite goodness is able to terminate the de- 
sires of itself and the insatiable wishes of ours. Wherever God will 
thus manifest Himself, there is heaven. Thus the soul of man may 
be in heaven anywhere. ... To ask where heaven is, is to demand 
where the presence of God is or where we have the glory of that 
happy vision. ... To be deprived of the joys of heaven is hell, and 
needs no addition to complete our afflictions." — Sir Thomas Browne's 
Religio Medici, pp. 87-91. 

" The love of God is of far greater value than the gifts it dispenses. 
It is the essence of our happiness; and without it all the riches of 
heaven could not make us happy, for we should still want the 
best, the highest good." — Sartorius's Person ami Work of Christ, 
Lee. vi. 



FAITH AND UNBELIEF. 359 

be saved. He that believeth on Him is not con- 
demned : but he that beHeveth not is condemned 
already, because he hath not beheved in the name 
of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the 
condemnation, that Light is come into the world, 
and men loved darkness rather than light " (John 

3 : 17-19)- 

Yes, dear friend, whoever thou art and whatever 
thy life has been, this is the grand conclusion of all 
that has engaged us in these inquiries : " The Word 
is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart : 
that is the Word of faith which we preach ; that if 
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, 
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with 
the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and 
with the mouth confession is made unto salvation " 
(Rom. 10 : 8-10). 

And now, unto Him that loves us, and washes us 
from our sins in His own blood, and maketh us 
kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him 
be glory and dominion for ever and ever ! 



f~\ LORD, Holy Father, everlasting God ; command the way of 
^-^ Thy truth and of the knowledge of Thee to be shown to 
those who wander in doubt and uncertainty amid the darkness of 
this world, that the eyes of their understandings may be opened 
to acknowledge and serve Thee, the one God, Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, and enjoy the fruit of the true confession both here and 
in the world to come. 

/''^OD of all heavenly powers, fulfil Thy mercy to the world that 
^-^ lieth in falsehood and sin, that the hearts of the rebellious may 
be subdued to the truth of Thy gospel, that the souls deceived by 
the fraud of the devil may be delivered, that all heretical perverse- 
ness may be driven away from those who name Thy Name, and 
that all who err from Thy ways may repent and come to Thy true 
Word; through Jesus Christ Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and 
reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world with- 
out end. 



ADDENDA. 



Kicking Away the Crutch. 

It was a miserably inclement day in Washing- 
ton. There had been a heavy fall of snow, and it 
was raining copiously. The streets were ankle-deep 
with slush, and the wind was driving fiercely. A 
certain colonel entered one of the hotels and walked 
into the reading-room. He met there a friend stand- 
ing by the window, looking out upon the dreary 
scene, to whom he remarked, 

" Isn't this a terrible day ?" 

"Indeed it is," responded the gentleman; "and I 
wish you had been here a few minutes ago. A poor 
crippled old man was making the best of his way 
through the storm across the street, when a big, lusty 
fellow came along, kicked his crutch from under his 
arm, and left him lying in the slush and wet." 

" The scoundrel !" exclaimed the colonel. " I wish 
I had been here ! I would have wrung his neck for 
him." 

" Well, colonel, you are the big, lusty fellow I had 
in mind," said the man, to the amusement of a num- 
ber of weather-bound listeners. " You are big and 

361 



362 RIGHT LIFE. 



strong, and hearty, and you go about the country 
kicking the crutch of Christianity from under the 
arms of poor crippled sinners who have no other 
support, and then leave them wallowing in the mud 
and mire of unbelief and despair. You are all pull 
down and no build up." 

The colonel was stunned by the parallel, for he 
was a lecturer against Christianity and the Bible. 
He made no response, but walked back into the 
office, where it is said he sat for an hour or more, 
seeming to be in a brown study. 

It was Rousseau who said of the infidel philoso- 
phers of his day, though himself deep in the same 
unholy business : " They would fain palm upon us, 
for the true causes of things, the unintelligible sys- 
tems they have erected in their own heads, whilst 
they overturn, destroy, and trample under foot all 
that mankind reveres ; snatch from the afflicted the 
only comfort left them in their misery, from the rich 
and great the only curb that can restrain their pas- 
sions ; tear from the heart all remorse for vice, all 
hopes of virtue ; and yet boast themselves the ben- 
efactors of the human race !" 

The Skeptic and the Clergyman. 

" I don't believe in a personal God," remarked a 
skeptic to a minister who was a fellow-traveller. 

" Why not ?" asked the minister. 

" Because I can't see Him. His existence is not 
demonstrable or capable of proof, like facts of sci- 
ence." 



ADDENDA. ' 363 



The minister asked, " Don't you believe that you 
are ahve and that I am ahve?" 

" Yes," he answered. 

" Why do you beheve it?" 

" Because I can see you move." 

" Well," said the minister, " the locomotive that is 
drawing this train also moves : is it alive ?" 

" No," he answered, " but the engineer who runs 
it is alive." 

" Please tell me," said the minister, " whether the 
engineer is a part of the machinery or a living per- 
son ?" 

" He is a living person, of course," replied the 
skeptic. 

" Now, sir," retorted the minister, " consistency is 
a jewel : please tell me why you attribute the move- 
ment of the locomotive to a living person, but deny 
that God, who sets the universe in motion, is a liv- 
ing Person ?'' 

The man had no answer. But, silenced on this 
argument, he branched off into another objection. 

** What I hate," he said, " in orthodoxy is this 
endless talk about creed, creed, creed, thrust upon 
us everywhere and at all times." 

" What do you mean by a man's creed ?" asked the 
minister. 

*' I understand by a creed that which a man be- 
lieves." 

"Well, sir," rejoined the minister, "you have just 
as much creed as I have. I believe there is a per- 
sonal God; you believe the opposite. I believe in 



364 RIGHT LIFE. 



the incarnation of the Son of God for our redemp- 
tion; you beheve the contrary. I beheve in the 
ruined estate of man, rendering a Redeemer neces- 
sary ; you beheve the opposite. What difference is 
there in the bulk of these two . creeds, only that I 
believe one side of the question, and you believe the 
other side? When we sift that point, you have just 
as much creed on your side as I have on mine ; but 
you want the right to advocate your sentiments, while 
you wish to deny me the same right on my side." 

The objector was silenced again. 

" But," said he, " Christianity is not capable of 
scientific demonstration. When we take the sciences, 
all truths are capable of demonstration by experi- 
ments which prove them. You can put them to 
the test. I take particular pleasure in the study of 
chemistry. Its propositions are plain, and can be 
proven by facts and experiments which appeal to 
the senses." 

" Then you have studied chemistry, I suppose ?" 

" Yes, sir." 

^* Well," resumed the minister, " as you are a stu- 
dent of chemistry, you are acquainted with the fact 
that charcoal, coal, and the diamond are the same 
in their molecules — namely, carbon. Now, can you 
take a molecule out of the charcoal and put it into 
a diamond, and get a perfect thing of it?" 
I The man acknowledged that he could not. 

" Where, then," said the minister, " is your dem- 
onstration in chemistry ? But, so fl\r as Christianity 
is concerned, your objection is not valid, for it is 



ADDENDA. 365 



capable of demonstration in its own way. You can 
try it spintually, and find it all that God has repre- 
sented it to be. God says to all, * Oh, taste and 
see.' Try it, and experience will attest its truth. 
Millions have put it to the test of their experience, 
and have found it * the power of God unto salvation 
to every one that believeth.' " 

In a somewhat more conciliatory spirit the skeptic 
spoke of his father and mother as believing Chris- 
tian people. 

" Were they good people ?" inquired the minister. 

" Yes, excellent," was the answer. " My father 
was an excellent, good man." 

" Well," asked the minister, " what practical benefit 
do you get by changing from the religion of your 
parents to skepticism ? Does it make you a better 
man ? Are you a better husband to your wife, a 
better father to your children, a better citizen in the 
community in which you live ? Does your unbelief 
make you any happier ?" 

The man was not willing to say that he was. 

" Have you a watch ?" said the minister. 

" Yes, an excellent time-piece," said the man, tak- 
ing out and displaying a fine gold watch. 

" It keeps good time, does it ?" 

" Yes, very reliable." 

" Well, how would you trade it off? Would you 
not demand for it a better timepiece of more value, 
rather than part with it for an inferior one ?" 

The man said, " Yes, certainly." 

''And here, again, you show how inconsistent 



366 RIGHT LIFE. 



with reason you are acting in changing the creed of 
your parents for one which you admit does not 
benefit you a particle beyond what their rehgion 
did for them." 

The skeptic had no reply to make. 

The Testimony of ax Old Disciple. 

A GLIB and jocose infidel lecturer advertised in 
one of the manufacturing towns of England to de- 
liver a discourse, charging threepence admission, in 
which he proposed to tell his hearers of something 
better than Jesus Christ ; and at the appointed time 
greatly entertained the most of his audience with his 
jests and merr)^making over the alleged blunders and 
absurdities of the Bible. When he concluded he 
gave the usual challenge, that if there was any one 
in the house with anything to say against his argu- 
ment, the way was now open to hear it. 

A poor old woman in homely dress and antique 
bonnet, with a basket on her arm and a faded um- 
brella in her hand, arose and walked to the stand 
amid titters of laughter from the gallant young men 
around her. Fixing her steady eye upon the ap- 
plauded lecturer, she said, 

" I come here to hear about what is better nor 
Christ, but I haven't heard it yet. I want to tell you 
now what He's done for me, and then I want you to 
tell me what is better, or else give in that you have 
cheated a poor old woman out of threepence. 

" I've been a widow thirty years. I was left with 
ten children, and nothincf to c^et bread, clothes, or 



ADDENDA. 367 



shelter for us. I was hard put to. I didn't know 
what to do. In my grief I turned to Jesus, the 
Friend of the poor. I prayed to Him to pity me 
and my little children. None of you knows what a 
lone woman, as I was, has to go through. But I 
believed in the love of Christ, and I prayed and 
prayed to Him. I knew he heard and pitied me, 
and it gave me comfort. He answered my prayers, 
and he helped me ; for I knew he wouldn't deceive 
me. So by His goodness I raised my ten children, 
and they are all good men and women, and love their 
old mother, though you ones laugh at her. 

" Sometimes I was very low, and the way was 
very dark, and the world was very, very hard. But 
I always prayed, and Jesus helped me, and so I 
got through. 

" Once I lay on my poor bed sick, and I thought 
I must die and leave my children behind, with no 
father and no mother to look after them. My heart 
'most broke about lettin' them so alone in the world; 
my mind was 'most gone when I thought about it. 
You may think how it was. But I turned to Jesus. 
I thought how good He is, and all He had done for 
me, and how He says, * Fear not, only believe.' And 
then I thought it was all wrong to fret so. If He 
wanted me for the children, He would leave me with 
them ; or if he didn't want me, He would take care 
of 'em Himself So I didn't fret no more, I jist 
left it all to Him. It took a mountain from my 
heart, and I got well. I was willin' to die if He 
thought it was best ; I left it all to Him, I trusted 



368 RIGHT LIFE. 



Him, and He made me well, and kept me with the 
children till now. 

" I am nothing but a poor old woman. I have 
nothing in this world but my good children and my 
Saviour. But I feel rich and happy in the goodness 
of my Lord Jesus and what He has done for me. 
My day '11 soon be over, but Jesus tells me He 
won't leave me. He'll be with me to the end, and 
then He'll take me where there's no more hard world 
like this to battle with — no want, no ailin', no dyin'. 
And when I am gone to Him my children '11 come 
there too, for they're all on the way. 

" This is what my Saviour has done for me. I 
love and thank Him for it, and I will always love 
and thank Him, for He's been very good to me. 

" Now, tell me, sir, what is better than that, as you 
said you would, or you're a fraud and you've cheated 
a poor old woman out of her threepence. I say, sir, 
tell me what's better than my Saviour, or don't dare 
open your foul lips again to turn young people's 
heads." 

The man was ill prepared to meet the point, but 
adroitly said, " Really, the dear old woman is so 
happy in her delusion that I should not like to un~ 
deceive her." 

" No, no," answered the woman ; " that won't do. 
What's true's true, and your laughin' don't change 
it a bit. I told you what Christ done for me ; and I 
couldn't stay in this hall and let you make fun of 
Him without telling you the truth. I know what 
He does for them as trusts in Him. And if you 



ADDENDA. 369 



can't tell me of some better, stop cheatin* of people 
by sayin' you will, and talkin' and laughin' at what 
you don't know about. I've tried it all, an' I know. 
Christ never deceived me by any word He ever said. 
But you've deceived me, an' you're a-deceivin' these 
people. You said you'd tell of some better than 
Jesus, an' you can't do it. You're a deceiver, you're 
a deceiver, sir; but Jesus isn't. I'll stick to Him, 
for I know what He's done for me ; an' you, nor all 
yours, can't tell me of any better." 

The Atheist and the Flower. 

When Napoleon was emperor of France he put 
a man by the name of Charney in prison on the sus- 
picion that he was an enemy of the government. 
Charney was a man of learning, and belonged to 
the school of the atheistic philosophers. His doc- 
trine was that all things come by chance, and he wrote 
it on the walls of his room and of the prison-yard. 

One day, while pacing his yard, he saw a tiny 
plant just breaking the ground close to the wall. 
The sight of it caused a pleasant diversion of his 
thoughts. No other green thing was within his en- 
closure. He watched its growth every day. " How 
came it there ?" was his frequent inward inquiry. 
As it grew, still other queries were suggested : " How 
came these delicate little veins in its leaves ? What 
made its proportions so perfect in every part, each 
new branch taking its exact place on the parent 
stock, neither too near another nor too much on 
one side?" 

24 



370 RIGHT LIFE. 



In his loneliness this plant became the prisoner's 
text, teacher, and valued friend. His affectionate 
interest became to him a real joy of life. When 
the flower began to unfold he was filled with de- 
light. It was white, purple, and rose-colored, with 
a fine silvery fringe. Charney made a frame to sup- 
port it, and did what his circumstances allowed to 
protect it from accident, pelting rains, or violent 
winds. 

" All things come by chance " had been written by 
him on the wall just above where the flower grew. 
Its gentle reproof whispered throughout its entire 
being, " There is One who gave me my life, shaped 
my form, and fashioned my beauty ;" which so 
shamed the proud man's untenable creed that he 
brushed the lying words from the wall, feeling in 
his soul that the flower was right and he wrong, 
and that there is a good and loving God who made 
this flower and all things. The little plant cured 
him of his atheism. 

But it did more. There was an Italian prisoner in 
the same yard, whose little daughter was permitted 
to visit him betimes. The little girl was much 
pleased with Charney's flower, and with his great 
love for it. She told the jailer's wife about it. and 
the man and his flower became a subject of remark 
which passed from one to another till it reached the 
cars of the amiable empress Josepliine. It interested 
her even more than others. She said : " The man 
who so devotedly loves and tends a flower cannot be 
a bad man." So she spoke to the emperor in behalf 



ADDENDA. 37 1 



of the prisoner, and persuaded Napoleon to set the 
man at Hberty. 

When Charney was released from prison he car- 
ried his precious flower with him, and continued to 
love and care for it with peculiar tenderness. It had 
lifted him out of the darkness of his atheism, liber- 
ated his soul from ruinous error, and restored to him 
his bodily freedom also. 

Random Readings. 

Some years since a discussion had been held dur- 
ing the winter months between Christians and un- 
believers in a hall in St. Luke's, London. At the 
last meeting of the season it was resolved that on 
that occasion any question should be in order which 
had been discussed during any previous meeting. 
Among other unbelievers who came forward was 
a young man who had often spoken there on various 
subjects, and who, as reported by one present, spoke 
thus : 

" Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen : I have de- 
termined to show you to-night what the Bible really 
is ; and in order to be fair, I will not take selected 
passages, but will allow the book to open where it 
will and read you the first verse on which my eye 
lights. You will then see in what kind of a book 
the Christians believe." 

He allowed the Bible to fall open in his hand, and 
read aloud : 

" Pure religion and undefiled before God and the 
Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in 



372 RIGHT LIFE. 



their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from 
the world " (James i : 27). 

Somewhat abashed, and amidst the joy of the 
Christians and confusion of his own party, he opened 
the Bible again and read : 

" Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose 
the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, 
and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break 
every yoke ?" (Isa. 58:6). 

Still more abashed, he read again as the book 
opened : 

" Wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil 
of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do 
evil ; learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve the 
oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" 
(Isa. I : 16). 

He made one last attempt and read : 

" He hath showed thee, O man, what is good ; and 
what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, 
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy 
God?" (Mic. 6:8). 

Disappointed and chagrined, the skeptic left the 
platform, overwhelmed by the sneers of his com- 
panions and the tumultuous joy of the Christians. 

No Christian could desire a more favorable test 
than this. The Scriptures will bear to be taken at 
random and read in the presence of their bitterest 
foes, for " every word of God is pure as silver re- 
fined in a furnace of earth." 



ADDENDA. 373 



It Proves Itself. 

A GENTLEMAN approaclicd the fruit-stand of an 
Italian woman, whom he found very intently en- 
gaged in reading a book. 

" What are you reading there, my good woman, 
that seems to interest you so much ?" he inquired. 

" The Word of God," said the woman. 

" The Word of God ? Who told you that ?" 

" God told me Himself," answered the woman. 

" God told you ? How did He do that ? Have 
you ever talked with God ? How did He tell you 
that was His Word?" 

Not accustomed to discuss questions of theology, 
the woman was a little confused. Recovering her- 
self, she looked upward into the sky and said : " Sir, 
can you prove to me there is a sun up there in the 
heavens ?" 

"Prove it?" said the man. "Why do you ask me 
to prove it ? It proves itself It warms me and I 
see its light ; what better proof can any one want ?" 

The woman smiled and said : " Just so ; you are 
right. And that is just the way God tells me this 
book is His Word. I read it, and it warms me and 
gives me light. I see Him in it, and what it says is 
light and warmth which none but God can give ; and 
so He tells me that it is His Word. What more 
proof do I need ?" 

The man left, admiring the simple argument of 
the woman, and took pleasure in relating it as indi- 
cating a clear and sufficient proof of the divinity of 
the Bible. 



374 RIGHT LIFE. 



General Bertrand and Napoleon. 

After the fall of Napoleon, and while in exile on 
the island of St. Helena, his friend General Bertrand 
remained with him as one of his companions. Ber- 
trand was an avowed unbeliever on the subject of 
religion. On one occasion the dethroned emperor 
said something about the divinity of Christ, to which 
Bertrand remarked : 

" I cannot conceive, Sire, how a great man like you 
can believe that the Supreme Being ever exhibited 
Himself to men under a human form, with a body, 
a face, mouth, and eyes. Let Jesus be whatever you 
please — the highest intelligence, the purest heart, 
the most profound legislator, and, in all respects, the 
most singular being that ever existed : I grant it ; 
still, he was simply a man, who taught his disciples 
and deluded credulous people, as did Orpheus, Con- 
fucius, Brahma. Jesus caused Himself to be adored, 
because His predecessors, Isis and Osiris, Jupiter and 
Juno, had proudly made themselves objects of wor- 
ship. The ascendency of Jesus over his time was 
like the ascendency of the gods and heroes of fable. 
If Jesus has impassioned and attached to his chariot 
the multitude, if he has revolutionized the world, I 
see in that only the power of genius and the action 
of a commanding spirit which vanquishes the world," 
as so many conquerors have done — Alexander, 
Caesar, you, Sire, and Mohammed — with a sword." 

To this, among other things, Napoleon replied : 
'* I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ was 
not a man. . . . There is between Christianity and 



ADDENDA. 375 



whatever other rehgion the distance of infinity. We 
can say to the authors of every rehgion, * You are 
neither gods nor the agents of the Deity. You are 
but missionaries of falsehood, moulded from the 
same clay with the rest of mortals. You are made 
with all the passions and vices inseparable from them. 
Your temples and your priests proclaim your origin.' 
Such will be the judgment, the cry of conscience, of 
whoever examines the gods and the temples of pa- 
ganism. 

" Paganism was never accepted as truth by the 
wise men of Greece, neither by Socrates, Pythagoras, 
Plato, Anaxagoras, or Pericles. On the other side, 
the loftiest intellects since the advent of Christianity 
have had faith, a living faith, a practical faith, in the 
mysteries and doctrines of the gospel ; not only Bos- 
suet and Fenelon, who were preachers, but Descartes 
and Newton, Leibnitz and Pascal, Corneille and Ra- 
cine, Charlemagne and Louis XIV. Paganism is 
the work of man. One can here read but our im- 
becility. What do these gods, so boastful, know 
more than other mortals ? these legislators, Greek 
or Roman — this Numa, this Lycurgus, these priests 
of India or of Memphis, this Confucius, this Mo- 
hammed ? Absolutely nothing. They have made 
a perfect chaos of morals. There is not one among 
them all who has said anything new in reference to 
our future destiny, to the soul, to the essence of God, 
to the creation. Enter the sanctuaries of paganism. 
You there find perfect chaos, a thousand contradic- 
tions — war between the gods, the immobility of 



376 RIGHT LIFE. 



sculpture, the division and the rending of unity, the 
parcelHng out of the divine attributes mutilated or 
denied in their essence, the sophisms of ignorance 
and presumption, polluted fetes, impurity and abom- 
ination adored ; all sorts of corruption festering in 
the thick shades, with the rotten wood, the idol and 
his priest. Are these religions and these gods to be 
compared with Christianity ? As for me, I say no. 
I summon entire Olympus to my tribunal. I judge 
the gods, but am far from prostrating myself before 
their vain images. The gods, the legislators of India 
and China, of Rome and of Athens, have nothing 
which can overawe me. ... I see in Lycurgus, 
Numa, and Mohammed only legislators, who, hav- 
ing first rank in the state, have sought the best solu- 
tion of the social problems ; but I see nothing there 
which reveals divinity. ... I recognize the gods and 
these great men as beings like myself They per- 
formed a lofty part in their times, as I have done. 
Nothing announces them divine. On the contrary, 
there are numerous resemblances between them and 
myself — foibles and errors which ally them to me 
and to humanity. 

*' It is not so with Christ. Everything in Him 
astonishes me [see pp. 221, 223]. The nearer I ap- 
proach, the more carefully I examine, everything is 
above me — everything remains grand, of a grandeur 
which overpowers me. His religion is a revelation 
from an Intelligence which ccrtainh- is not that o{ 
man. There is there a profound originality which 
has created a series of words and o{ maxims before 



ADDENDA. 2)77 



unknown. Jesus borrowed nothing from our sci- 
ences. One can absolutely find nowhere but in Him 
alone the imitation or the example of His life. He 
is not a philosopher, since He advances by miracles, 
and from the commencement His disciples wor- 
shipped Him. He persuades them far more by an 
appeal to the heart than by any display of logic. 
Neither did He impose upon them any preliminary 
studies or any knowledge of letters. All His relig- 
ion consists in believing. 

" Jesus came into the world to reveal the mysteries 
of heaven and the laws of the Spirit. Also, He 
hath nothing to do but with the soul, and to that 
alone He brings His gospel. The soul is sufficient 
for Him, as He is sufficient for the soul. Before 
Him the soul was nothing ; matter and time were 
the masters of the world. At His voice everything 
returns ta order. Science and philosophy become 
secondary. The soul has reconquered its sover- 
eignty. All the scholastic scaffolding falls as an 
edifice ruined before one single word — Faith. What 
a Master and what a word which can effect such a 
revolution ! With what authority does He teach 
men to pray ! He imposes His belief, and no 
one, thus far, has been able to contradict Him : first, 
because the gospel contains the purest morality, and 
also because the doctrine which it contains of ob- 
scurity is only the proclamation and the truth of 
what exists where no eye can see and no reason 
penetrate. . . . One can doubtless remain incredu- 
lous ; but no man can venture to say, // is not so. 



378 RIGHT LIFE. 



" The Christian religion is neither ideology nor 
metaphysics, but a practical rule, which directs the 
actions of man, corrects him, counsels him, and 
assists him in all his conduct The Bible contains 
a complete series of facts and of historical men to 
explain time and eternity, such as no other religion 
has to offer. If this is not the true religion, one is 
very excusable in being deceived ; for everything in 
it is grand and worthy of God. I search in vain in 
history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or any- 
thing which can approach the gospel. Neither his- 
tory nor humanity nor the ages nor Nature offer me 
anything with which I am able to compare it or to 
explain it. Here everything is extraordinary. The 
more I consider the gospel, the more I am assured 
that there is nothing there which is not beyond the 
march of events and above the human mind. Even 
the impious themselves have never dared to deny 
the sublimity of the gospel, which inspires them 
with a sort of compulsory veneration. . . . "Who but 
God could produce that type, that idea of perfection, 
equally exclusive and original ? . . . 

** You speak of Caesar, of Alexander, of their 
conquests, and of the enthusiasm which they en- 
kindled in the hearts of their soldiers. But can you 
conceive of a dead man making conquests with an 
army faithful and entirely devoted to his memory? 
My armies have forgotten me even while living, as 
the Carthaginian army forgot Hannibal. Such is 
our power ! A single battle lost crushes us, and 
adversity scatters our friends. Can \'ou conceive 



ADDENDA. 2>79 



of Caesar as the eternal emperor of the Roman 
Senate and from the depths of his mausoleum gov- 
erning the empire, watching over the destinies of 
Rome ? Such is the history of the invasion and 
conquest of the world by Christianity. Such is the 
power of the God of the Christians, and such is the 
perpetual miracle of the progress of the faith and of 
the government of His Church. Nations pass away, 
thrones crumble, but the Church remains. What is, 
then, the power which has protected this Church, 
thus assailed by the furious billows of rage and the 
hostility of ages ? Whose is the arm which for 
eighteen hundred years has preserved the Church 
amid so many storms which have threatened to en- 
gulf it? . . . 

^' In every other existence but that of Christ how 
many imperfections ! Where is the character which 
has not yielded, vanquished by obstacles ? Where 
is the individual who has never been governed by 
circumstances or places, who has never succumbed 
to the influence of the times, who has never com- 
pounded with any customs or passions ? From the 
first day to the last He is the same, always the 
same — majestic and simple, infinitely firm and in- 
finitely gentle. . . . 

" It is true that Christ proposes to our faith a 
series of mysteries. He commands, with authority, 
that we should believe them, giving no other reason 
than those tremendous words, */ am God' This He 
declares. What an abyss He creates by that decla- 
ration between Himself and all the fabricators of re- 



380 RIGHT LIFE. 



ligions ! What audacity, what sacrilege, what blas- 
phemy, if it were not true ! I say more : the 
universal triumph of an affirmation of that kind, 
if the triumph were not really that of God Himself, 
would be a plausible excuse and proof for atheism. 
Moreover, in propounding mysteries Christ is har- 
monious with Nature, which is profoundly myste- 
rious. ... In man and out of man everything is mys- 
terious. And can one wish that religion should not 
be mysterious ? The creation and destiny of the 
world is an unfathomable abyss, as also is the crea- 
tion and the destiny of each individual. Christianity 
at least does not evade these great questions. It meets 
them boldly. And its doctrines are a solution of 
them for every one who believes. 

"The gospel possesses a secret virtue. [See p. 
273.] ... I never omit to read it, and every day 
with the same pleasure. Nowhere is to be found 
such a series of beautiful ideas, admirable moral 
maxims, which pass before us like the battalions of 
a celestial army, and which produce in our soul the 
same emotions which one experiences in contemplat- 
ing the infinite expanse of the skies resplendent in 
a summer's night with all the brilliance of the stars. 
Not only is our mind absorbed ; it is controlled, 
and the soul can never go astray with this book for 
its guide. Once master of our spirit, the faithful 
gospel loves us. God even is our Friend, our 
Father, and truly our God. The mother has no 
greater care for the infant which she nurses. What 
a proof of the divinity of Christ ! With an empire 



ADDENDA, 38 1 



SO absolute, He has but one single end, the spiritual 
melioration of individuals, the purity of conscience, 
the union to that which is true, the holiness of the 
soul. Christ speaks, and at once generations become 
His by stricter, closer ties than those of blood — by 
the most sacred, the most indissoluble, of all unions. 
He lights up the flame of a love which consumes self- 
love, which prevails over every other love. The 
founders of other religions never conceived of this 
mystical love, which is the essence of Christianity 
and is beautifully called charity. In every attempt 
to effect this thing, to make himself beloved, man 
deeply feels his own impotence. So that Christ's 
greatest miracle undoubtedly is the reign of charity. 
" I have inspired multitudes that they would die 
for me. . . . But, after all, my presence was neces- 
sary — the lightning of my eye, my voice, a word 
from me. ... I do indeed possess the secret of this 
magical power which lifts the soul, but I could never 
impart it to any one. None of my generals learnt 
it from me. Nor have I the means of perpetuating 
my name and love for me in the hearts of men, and 
to effect these things without physical means. Now 
that I am alone, chained upon this rock, who fights 
and wins empires for me? Who are the courtiers 
of my misfortune ? Who thinks of me ? Who 
makes efforts for me in Europe ? Where are my 
friends ? Yes, two or three of you share and con- 
sole my exile. . . . We are mere lead now, General 
Bertrand, and soon I shall be in my grave. Such is 
the fate of great men ! So it was with Caesar and 



382 RIGHT LIFE. 



Alexander. And I, too, am forgotten. . . . Behold 
the destiny, near at hand, of him who was called the 
Great Napoleon ! What an abyss between my deep 
misery and the eternal reign of Christ, which is pro- 
claimed, loved, adored, and extending over all the 
earth ! Is this to die ? Is it not rather to live ? 
For Christ to die would be the death of God !" 

After these touching remarks the emperor was 
silent. But as General Bertrand made no reply, 
Napoleon solemnly added : 

" General Bertrand, if you do not perceive that 
Jesus Christ is God, very well ; then I did wrong to 
make you a general." — See Abbott's Life of Napo- 
leon. 



THE END. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



THE LAST TIMES; 
Or, Thoughts on Momentous Themes. 

Seventh Edition, 1883, pp. 448. 

THE GOSPEL IN THE STARS; 
Or, Primeval Astronomy. 

Second Edition, enlarged, 1885, pp. 522. 

LECTURES ON THE GOSPELS, 
For the Sundays and Chief Festivals of the Church Year, 

Second Edition, 1876. 2 Vols. 8vo, pp. 1 160. 

LECTURES ON THE EPISTLES, 

For Sundays and the Chief Festivals. 

1885, 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 1055. 

HOLY TYPES; 

Or, The Gospel in Leviticus. 

A Series of Lectures on the Hebrew Ritual. 

Third Edition, 1875, pp. 403. 

THE APOCALYPSE. 
A Series of Special Lectures on the Revelation of Jesus 

Christ, with Revised Text. 

Second Edition, 1881 ; London, James Nisbet & Co., 1882. 3 vols. 

PP- 1350- 

VOICES FROM BABYLON; 

Or, The Records of Daniel the Prophet, with a New 

Translation. 

i879»PP- 391- 

LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION, 

The Life-Springs of our Liberties. 

1883, pp. 206. 

ECCLESIA LUTHERANA; 

A Brief Survey of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. 

Fourth Edition, 1 87 1, pp. 276. 

URIEL; 
Or, Some Occasional Discourses. 

Second Edition, 1886, pp. 287. 

383 



384 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. 
Six Discourses, and a Sermon on the Judgeship of the Saints. 

Third Edition, 1873, PP- ^'^9' 

A MIRACLE IN STONE; 
Or, The Great Pyramid of Egjrpt. 

Fourteenth Edition, 1884, PP- 346. 

BLOSSOMS OF FAITH. 

Eight Sermons. 1880, pp. 227. 

THIRTY-THREE PRACTICAL SERMONS. 

Large 8vo, double columns, 1879, pp. 160. 

POPULAR LECTURES ON THE EPISTLE TO THE 
HEBREWS. 

1846, 8vo, pp. 408. (Out of print.) 

PLAIN WORDS, 
On Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, Christian Disciple- 
ship, The Church, The Lord's Supper, and Consubstan- 
tiation. 

1869, pp. 114. 

THE GOLDEN ALTAR: 

Forms of Living Faith. A Pocket Manual of Private 

Devotion. 

1882, pp. 158. 

LIFE AFTER DEATH; 
Or, Post-Mortem Accountability. 

1878, pp. z"^. 

THE JAVELIN. 

A Collection and Arrangement of Various Fugitive Articles, 

mostly Controversial and Denominational. 

i87i,pp. 387. 

TRUTH MADE PLAIN; 

Or, The Rudiments of the Christian Religion, for the Use 

of Families, Sunday-schools, and Bible-classes. 

Sundry Editions, beginning with 1S70, pp. 95. 



(^^ 



